Alexie, Sherman with Forney, Ellen. The
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little
Brown & Company, 2007
A National Book Award Winner and a New
York Times Bestseller, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian is as funky as its title
promises. Illustrated with always-delightful, sometimes sardonic cartoons of
Ellen Forney, it traces a year in the life of a Washington State
indigenous high school person who chooses to go to a school
off-reserve, hence the “Part-time Indian.” Although the
reservations in the
USA and the reserves
in Canada and the people who live in each are not identical by any
means, Part-time Indian
will resonate with readers north of the border, especially with both
indigenous and settler persons living in what we used to call “The
Kamsack Situation,” a case of sometimes-troubled interaction
between a settler town and an adjacent reserve.
Arnold Spirit (Junior) “is a budding cartoonist growing up on the
Spokane Indian Reservation. Born with a variety of medical problems,
he is picked on by everyone but his best friend, leaves the rez to
attend an all-white school in the neighboring farm town where the
only other Indian is the school mascot. Despite being condemned as a
traitor to his people and enduring great tragedies, Junior attacks
life with wit and humor and discovers a strength inside of himself
that he never knew existed (Book cover blurb).”
Part-time
Indian will probably be found in
the Juvenile Fiction section in most libraries, and certainly the
vocabulary, the straightforward simplicity of the plot suggest a
juvenile audience. But in this age of reconsidering residential
schools and Truth and Reconciliation in
Canada particularly, I would caution that the novel could reinforce
stereotypes rather than clarify; it lacks the historic background
that’s badly needed to help us understand why an indigenous
author in a juvenile fiction would write:
“Gordy gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who
wrote: ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way.’ Well I hate to argue with a Russian
genius, but Tolstoy didn’t know Indians. And he didn’t know that
all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reason: the
fricking booze.”
Fictional Arnold has good reason to be bitter, particularly after a
succession of tragedies—all involving alcohol—beset his family.
It’s a repeated motif: having scarcely enough money for mounting a
celebratory Christmas, his father takes it all and goes on a ten day
binge. Get drunk, do something stupid or tragic, repent sorrowfully,
repeat, repeat.
It was probably in the sixties/seventies that we began to talk about
alcoholism as an illness. That “epiphany” probably opened the
door to better addiction treatment, but it didn’t simplify much
except that the diagnosis was now obvious. Illness implies a
cause and an effect, and in the case of the high level of alcoholism
on reserves, it’s the grappling with the germ, the virus, the cause
that needs consideration. Illness, after all, also cries for
remedy; remedy, to be successful, addresses the cause, not just the
symptoms. Part-time Indian doesn’t address this; as a work
of art—and not a piece of propaganda or medical analysis—it
probably shouldn’t. But if it were to lead young readers to a
greater understanding that Arnold’s dilemma has precursors, it
might well work to contribute to the search for ways to tackle
causes.
In Canada, that search is called Truth and Reconciliation.
Part-time Indian introduces
readers to the concept
of the apple-indian, i.e.
“red on the outside, white on the inside.” People who are born
into and live their lives in a majority culture can never fully
comprehend this aspect of visible-minority life. African-Americans
have their oreo cookies;
the tensions on both sides of such an “are you in or are you out”
reality are central to Part-time Indian, and
the Discussion Guide
appended to the novel should help in introducing the implications of
this vital divide to readers. In Arnold Spirit’s world, pursuing
aspirations for achievement rests completely on risking the “traitor”
label and its consequences.
Rowdy
is the nickname of Arnold’s doppelganger,
a childhood friend who remains in school on the reservation and
personifies the red exterior of the “apple,” what Arnold might
have been. Their love/hate, off/on relationship is beautifully
captured in a one-on-one basketball encounter that goes on for
hours—without keeping score.
Those
of us who spend appreciable amounts of time reading do so for various
reasons. If the primary purpose is diversion, amusement, then a novel's possible insights into our personal realities may not even register. For
others, the search for “truth” may well include the study of
fiction for clues and insights. Writer
Tim O’Brien has put it like this: “Fiction
is the lie [invention, story] that helps us understand the truth.”
The
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,
scores on both counts; I was diverted, amused, and what insights I
felt I already had into the part-time
Indian issue
were
sharpened, given a new slant.
Stars
seem inappropriate since their assigning implies a comparison to
other novels. The
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is
unique; comparisons are therefor meaningless. Suffice it to say that
I read all of it; I don’t stick with published material that lacks
quality—in my biased, snooty, English-teacher opinion, that is.