I was first introduced to Sherman Alexie when I read "Superman and Me," an essay he wrote about Alexie's reading experiences as a child on the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. I found the essay in the anthology I used for my English 3 AP students. He stresses that reading helped him make it past society's expectations of a reservation Indian (I'm going to use Indian here, instead of the more politically correct Native American, because that's the term Alexie uses.)
I found The Absolutely True Diary while browsing the YA section of my county library. Recognizing the author's name, I picked it up. I am now a fan of Alexie's writing and plan on reading more of his work. The fact that I found it in the YA section is misleading -- I think readers of all ages would enjoy it.
The Diary is a work of fiction, but I wonder if any of it is autobiographical. Told by Junior, a high school freshman living on the "rez," the story develops our understanding of the family life, tribal life, and the education (or lack thereof) provided for Indians on a reservation. Although the story is told by a young person, the emotions evoked are clear and visceral. While reading, I constantly felt my heart and mind quicken with sudden understanding of how unfair life can be. Using a kid's language, and a kid's perspective, Alexie is able to express some very adult insights into what it is to be an Indian relegated to a life of segregation.
Junior lives with his parents, his sister, and his grandmother. Mom and dad are alcoholics, which sometimes means long absences and no food in the house because the money has been spent on liquor. But he loves them, no questions asked. Junior is one of the lucky ones in that his parents are not abusive drunks. (I don't mean this sarcastically -- they cherish their children, even when drunk. Junior's friends aren't always so lucky.)
Junior's older sister lives in the basement and reads romance novels -- her escape from reality. I mean, that's ALL she does. Until she marries a Blackfoot Indian and moves to Montana.
Junior says his grandmother is the rare Indian who never takes a drink. She offers Junior realistic advice, and he suffers greatly when she is gone.
Junior rebels on his first day at the reservation's high school, and asks his parents to allow him to enroll in the white high school in town. Surprisingly, they easily agree. I say, surprisingly, because nearly everyone else on the reservation sees this defection as treason and refuses to interact with him except to bully him, including his best friend Rowdy. In one memorable scene, when Junior's high school basketball team (from his new school) comes to the reservation to play the reservation high school team, the crowed is packed full of Indians whose sole purpose is to boo Junior. His parents' acquiescence to his request to attend the white school, and their never-failing belief in their son's choice, paint a picture of who they really are: they aren't stereotypical alcoholic Indians, they are parents who want their son to break free of the life that will consume and destroy him if he submits to reservation limitations, and they just happen to have problems with alcohol. The novel revolves mostly around Junior's trials at the white school, and his trials on the reservation trying to buck the expectations of his fellow Indians.
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