The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

[rachelmanija]

Funny, sad, angry, uplifting, and impossible to put down, this novel about a geeky teenage boy who leaves his school on the poverty-stricken Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an academically superior-- but all-white and all-rich-- high school is, along with Kathleen Duey's Skin Hunger, one of my two favorite YA novels I've read all year.

Here's Arnold "Junior" Spirit on his first day at the new high school. Roger is another student:

"Hey, Chief," Roger said. "You want to hear a joke?"

"Sure," I said.

"Did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo?"

I felt like Roger had kicked me in the face. That was the most racist thing I'd ever heard in my life.

Roger and his friends were laughing like crazy. I hated them. And I knew I had to do something big. I couldn't let them get away with that shit. I wasn't just defending myself. I was defending Indians, black people, and buffalo.

Arnold/Junior draws cartoons, which are an integral part of the book. They're actually drawn by artist Ellen Forney, and they're terrific.

I'm not sure if what I loved most about this novel was Arnold's very convincingly teenage voice and personality, the way that even the most minor characters had depth and complexity and a point of view, or the way that Alexie manages to depict the appalling conditions on the rez, the brutal social conditions that produced it, and Arnold's moments of self-pity without either glossing over any of that or producing an awesomely depressing book. Or the cartoons. Loved the cartoons.

The book this reminded me of the most was Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, for its uncompromising grittiness, teenage protagonist who kept a sense of humor despite soul-crushing experiences (and found hope in art), and witty first-person narrative.

It also struck home to me on a personal level with its honest account of being stuck between two cultures, being a misfit, and the guilt and intoxicating freedom of walking away from one's childhood home, knowing that you've left others behind in terrible conditions that they are unlikely to be able to either improve or escape.

I'd read some of Alexie's short stories before (which I liked but which didn't really wow me), but none of his novels. Are any of his adult books anything like this? Which would you recommend?

Click here to buy it from Amazon: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Comments

And since I transcribed this ages ago in a review...here's one of my favorite passages from IK

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

<sub>On a gray day when John was six years old, Father Duncan took him to see the Chapel of the North American Martyrs in downtown Seattle. John found himself surrounded by vivid stained glass reproductions of Jesuits being martyred by Indians. Bright white Jesuits with bright white suns at their necks. A Jesuit, tied to a post, burning alive as Indians dance around him. Another pierced with dozens of arrows. A third, with his cassock torn from his body, crawling away from an especially evil-looking Indian. The fourth being drowned in a blue river. The fifth, sixth, and sevent being scalped. An eight and ninth praying together as a small church burns behind them. And more and more. John stared up at so much red glass.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked Father Duncan.

John did not understand. He was not sure if Father Duncan thought the artwork was beautiful, or if the murder of the Jesuits was beautiful. Or both.

"There's a myth, a story, that the blood of those Jesuits was used to stain the glass," said Duncan. "But who knows if it's true. We Jesuits love to tell stories."

"Why did the Indians kill them?"

"They wanted to kick the white people out of America. Since the priests were the leaders, they were the first to be killed."

John looked up at the stained glass Jesuits, then at the Spokane Indian Jesuit. "But you're a priest," said John.

"Yes, I am."

John did not have the vocabulary to express what he was feeling. But he understood there was something odd about the contrast between the slaughtered Jesuits and Father Duncan, and between the Indian Jesuit and the murderers.

"Did the white people leave?" asked John.

"Some of them did. But more came."

"It didn't work."

"No."

"Why didn't the Indians kill all of the white people?"

"They didn't have the heart for it."

"But didn't the white people kill most of the Indians?"

"Yes, they did."

John was confused. He stared up at the martyred Jesuits. Then he noticed the large crucifix hanging over the altar. A mortally wounded Jesus, blood pouring from his hands and feet, from the wound in his side. John saw the altar candles burning and followed the white smoke as it rose toward the ceiling of the chapel.

"Was Jesus an Indian?" asked John.

Duncan studied the crucifix, then looked down at John. "He wasn't an Indian," said the Jesuit, "but he should have been."

John seemed to accept that answer. He could see the pain in Jesus' wooden eyes. At six, he already knew that a wooden Jesus could weep. He'd seen it on television. Once every few years, a wooden Jesus wept and thousands of people made the pilgrimage to the place where the miracle happened. If miracles happened with such regularity when did they cease to be miracles? And simply become ordinary events, pedestrian proof of God? John knew that holy people sometimes bled from their hands and feet, just as Jesus had bled from his hands and feet when nailed to the cross. Such violence, such faith.

"Why did they do that to Jesus?" aked John.

"He died so that we may live forever."

"Forever?"

"Forever."

John looked up again at the windows filled with the dead and dying.

"Did those priests die like Jesus?" asked John.

Father Duncan did not reply. He knew that Jesus was killed because he was dangerous, because he wanted to change the world in a good way. He also knew that the Jesuits were killed because they were dangerous to the Indians who didn't want their world to change at all. Duncan knew those Jesuits thought they were changing the Indians in a good way.

"Did those priests die like Jesus?" John asked again.

Duncan was afraid to answer the question. As a Jesuit, he knew those priests were martyred just like Jesus. As a Spokane Indian, he knew those Jesuits deserved to die for their crimes against Indians.

"John," Duncan said after a long silence. "You see those windows? You see all of this? It's what is happening inside me right now."

John stared at Duncan, wondering if the Jesuit had a stained glass heart. Rain began to beat against the windows, creating an illusion of movement on the stained faces of the murderous Indians and martyred Jesuits, and on young John's face. And on Duncan's. The man and child stared up at the glass.</sub>

Re: And since I transcribed this ages ago in a review...here's one of my favorite passages from IK

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I love that.