Weeks after finishing Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, two things remain firmly in my mind. Actually more than just the two, but in particular--the twenty miles that Junior would sometimes have to walk between his Reservation and the town of Reardan where he decides to go to high school. The only poor Indian in a school filled with white kids who come from middle class families and are likely to go on to college. That, the fact of his often having to walk, but also that his fears of going were curiously misplaced and while their lifestyle differences were palpably obvious, this was not a story fraught with pain and hardships. Well, not as many as I thought there would be. Junior has a most engaging and heartfelt voice in this story and it is one that is far more hopeful than hopeless. I can't tell you how much I liked it.
As if being an Indian, coming from a Reservation and trying to fit into the wider, and whiter world is not hard enough, Junior was born with water on the brain.
"Okay, so that's not exactly true. I was actually born with too much cerebral spinal fluid inside my skull. But cerebral spinal fluid is just the doctor's way of saying brain grease. And brain grease works inside the lobes like car grease works inside an engine. It keeps things running smooth and fast. But weirdo me, I was born with too much grease inside my skull, and it got all thick and muddy and disgusting, and it only mucked up the works. My thinking and breathing and living engine flooded."
On top of all that, or maybe because of it, he ended up with more teeth than usual and had to have major dental work, has to wear eyeglasses as one eye is nearsighted and the other farsighted (and Indian Health Service funds only those ugly, thick, black plastic glasses and only once a year), his skull is too big ("enormous" he laments) and his hands and feet are mostly out of proportion with the rest of his body. To add further insult he suffers from seizures on occasion, which means the "damage his damage" (he jokingly adds). Did I mention Junior is totally self-deprecating and is an amazing cartoonist, which is how he copes with his problems and manages his world. That, and his best friend, Rowdy, also born on the same day (though if Junior was born broken and twisted, Rowdy was born whole and very mad). The two are a pair, friends and in the case of Rowdy, protector of sorts. And as the two grow up not much (in terms of being broken and very mad) changes. Until Junior decides to leave the Rez. At least part-time.
Life on the Rez is not easy, but maybe it is easier to be with others who share the same circumstances and background. But is also means fewer or missed opportunities. The chance to be something more than just "someone from the Rez". He sees it in his parents and his sister, who also finds a way to escape on her own terms. He knows his parents had dreams, of being something other than poor, but "they never got the chance to be anything because nobody paid attention to their dreams."
Luckily for Junior, a teacher does recognize his potential and the potential that his dreams might be achieved and he can leave and have a better life, but his first step has to be to get off the Rez and get a good education. It's a fearful sort of thing. Not only must he get to Reardan every day (and his father is not always so good at driving him those miles and picking him up), so he leaves behind everything that is easy and familiar, but he must try and assimilate into a place where Indians are viewed with suspicion and mistrust. He is different, and those other kids are different. Ultimately, of course, this is a story where it is the middle ground, that space where lives overlap that triumphs, but it won't be easy.
Junior is seen not only as, or at least he feels as if he is, an interloper, but also as a traitor. The Indians on the Rez don't understand his need to leave and to be part of that white world. And Rowdy, angry as he always is, takes it the hardest. Both boys play basketball, and Rowdy plays well. Really well. The two worlds will on more than one occasion clash and it won't be easy. Alexie does not sugar coat Junior's life or his challenges in trying to make a better life for himself, yet all my worries about this story being uncomfortably hard to read were never realized and it is there that I think is Alexie's success in this book. And it won all sorts of awards and deservedly so.
I want to read more literature about diverse lifestyles, and this was a perfect introduction to Native American Literature. This is one I can happily recommend and can firmly press it into your hands as an excellent read. I hope to read more by Sherman Alexie, and if you have other author/title recommendations for Native American/Indigenous writers, do share.