review by Stephen Carter



Author: Sherman Alexie
Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Date: September 12, 2007
Hardcover
240 pages
ISBN-10: 0-31601-368-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-31601-368-0
$16.99

Review of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; by Sherman Alexie.

Ever since I joined the AML list the main author that has been heldforth as a model for good Mormon writing is Chaim Potok. We like himbecause he managed to take an insular, idiosyncratic community (HasidicJudaism) and craft novels that can speak to a wide audience.

A few days ago I ran across a book that provides another compelling model, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,by Sherman Alexie. I've read a number of Alexie's books before, so Iknew I was in for some good writing, but I was amazed this time aroundat how elegantly he dealt with the subject we value Potok for, namelyhow a person (especially a young person) deals with the tension betweenthe community he/she was raised in, and the larger world.

The story is about a Spokane Indian boy named Junior who, on the adviceof a teacher, decides to leave the reservation school and pursue hiseducation in a nearby town. He believes it's the only way he'll escapethe fate of pretty much everyone he knows: alcoholism and an earlydeath.

The book is filled with cartoons. One shows a boy standing next todirectional signposts. The one that points behind him reads, "Rez:Home." The boy is considering the direction of the other signpost, theone that reads "Hope???"

But everyone Junior cares about interprets his leaving the reservationschool as a betrayal. They call him an "apple" meaning that he's red onthe outside and white on the inside. Going into the white world, evenif it means he'll live a longer, happier and more productive life, issimply unacceptable to Junior's neighbors.

You simply don't leave the reservation.

Of course, in the outside world Junior finds both good and bad things.But ultimately he does find hope. And he makes it very clear that hecould not have found that hope on the reservation. He does have othervery important things on the reservation: family, friends, andheritage. And he wants these as well. This tension between the whiteworld (hope) and the reservation (family) produces some very moving andinsightful moments.

This plot is very much like Potok's My Name is Asher Lev where a young Jewish artist finds himself pulled between his religious world and the art world.

Potok and Alexie believe something that (it seems to me) the majorityof Mormons I have come in contact with don't. Namely, that all truthand goodness cannot be found in one place. Now I'm not just talkingabout optional or supplemental truth and goodness, I'm talking about indispensabletruth and goodness. Had Junior stayed on the reservation he would havehad his family and community, but he would not have had hope. Had Asherignored his artistic talent, an essential part of him would haveremained in darkness.

The reservation is the place where family and community are. The Whiteworld is the place where hope is. The Hasidic worldview is where familyand faith are. The art world is where transcendence is (for Asher,anyway). Junior and Asher need both worlds in order to become whole.But in order to partake in both, they have to become a stranger in both.

Mormons often admonish each other to be in the world but not of it. Inother words, we're encouraged to be strangers to the world. But we aretaught to never be strangers in our own community. Don't leave thereservation. Don't wander into the mists of darkness.

The fact of it is some of us have to leave the reservation. Maybe weʼrecrazy. Maybe weʼre arrogant. Maybe weʼre broken. Maybe weʼre brave. Butsomehow the nutrients from the fruit of the Tree of Life are too fewand we find that weʼre dying.

Whenever I think of the beginning of the Mormon hero's journey, Iimagine her stationed at the Tree of Life peering across the darkcanyons, filthy rivers and greasy mists to the Tree of the Knowledge ofGood and Evil.

This is the dilemma Mormon artists often face in our lives and ourwork. We feel ourselves becoming strangers to our own community. Somany of us stand to lose so much if we become complete strangers. Welose family, friends, social ties, a common language, perhaps even oursouls. Yet the world doesn't accept us completely either. We're strange.

What tribe can we be a part of? Where can we pitch our tent? Do we have to be nomads for the rest of our lives?

At the end of Part-Time Indian, Junior gives his best answer to that question.

"I wept because I was the only one who was brave and crazy enough to leave the rez. I was the only one with enough arrogance."

"I realized that I might be a lonely Indian boy, but I was not alone inmy loneliness. There were millions of other Americans who had lefttheir birthplaces in search of a dream."

"I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to thattribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And tothe tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of book worms."

"And the tribe of cartoonists."

"And the tribe of chronic masturbators."

"And the tribe of teenage boys."

"And the tribe of small-town kids."

"And the tribe of Pacific Northwesterners."

"And the tribe of tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers."

"And the tribe of poverty."

"And the tribe of funeral-goers."

"And the tribe of beloved sons."

"And the tribe of boys who really missed their best friends."

What is the possibility that we can have many homes, instead of havingto give up the one we came from? Can we be a part of the tribe ofMormons, sex scene writers, pantheists, mocha ice cream lovers, BurningMan enthusiasts, and beloved sons and daughters?