Book Review: "Part-Time Indian"
by Theresa Carpine3/15/2009 1:43:27 PM
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A good coming of age story should allow the reader to transcend differences of class, race, gender, and environment in order to identify with the narrator. While pointing out an anthology of distinctions between the fictional character and the young (or sometimes not so young) reader, the authors of the best examples in this genre will draw out the familiar and universal feelings of all adolescents in all cultures, in all times.
Cover of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
Copyrighted material.The author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Washington’s own Sherman Alexie, might not entirely agree with me on that point. After all, his protagonist, fourteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, Jr., or just Junior, takes umbrage with Leo Tolstoy’s memorable opening line of Anna Karenina—“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”—to claim that Indian families are all unhappy for the same reason (alcohol).
While a character like Junior experiences conflict—both inflicted by internal and external forces—that I’ve never had to confront, his story still reminds me of what it felt like to be a confused teenager, a quirky outsider, and a reluctant hero, sometimes all at once. I still find myself stepping into his basketball shoes, pulling my arms through his well-worn Kmart t-shirt, and squinting to see through his lopsided Buddy Holly glasses. Which is exactly what a coming of age story should be able to do.
Part-Time Indian is Alexie’s first young adult novel, although he’s been publishing novels, short story and poetry since the early 1990s. Alexie drew much of the inspiration for this story and the character of Junior from his own life growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation; like Alexie, Junior was born hydrocephalic (“water on the brain”) and is the only Native American to attend an all-white, off-reservation high school.
As Junior struggles for acceptance from his white classmates and teachers, he feels torn between the hope he has for his future and the seeming rejection of his Indian home and roots. Junior opines that “I always felt like a stranger” as he traveled between his home on the reservation and his school in a little, white town. Never feeling like you really belong is a common feeling among many adolescents, no matter their race or economic status or family background.
In his novel, Alexie touches this nerve that courses through everyone—the desire for acceptance—but emphasizes that some of us might have to work harder to gain the approval of others, whether they are our family and friends or our supposed enemies.
Fans of the novel have the chance to find out more about Junior and his story from the source when Sherman Alexie visits Bellingham on March 19, 2009 for Whatcom Reads! Visit the website to find out more about this community program.