Seattle Revelations

This week I read the 10 stories that comprise Sherman Alexie's collection of stories, Ten Little Indians, published in 2003. They are all good and sad and funny, as Alexie's work is.  The stories are about 10 different American Indians, all living in Seattle.  They are different by occupation, age and class; some are of mixed race, some not.  But all are interesting, and each is exposed to the reader's view in a rather extreme way.

What the stories have in common is this openness, this stark honesty that reveals the characters' dark secrets, not only to the reader, but also to other characters, many of them total strangers to the protagonist.  In fact, it is this confessional aspect of each story that ties it to the next. It's almost as if the characters are acting as readers for each other.

Alexie always has a storyteller in his fiction; he sees the storyteller as central to his culture, even perhaps to all cultures.  As a storyteller himself, Alexie knows that for the storyteller to complete his mission, there must be a listener who is willing to enter the storyteller's world. In each of the stories in Ten Little Indians there is such a listener: kind, tolerant, responsive, insightful.  And I would add: grateful. Grateful for the story, for the chance to the see the world through a stranger's eyes.

It's been a few months since I've read Alexie's work (See my October 11, 2012 post), so it was nice to get back to his world, although I must say that Alexie's vision is not for the faint of heart. It's intense, but rich in its intensity.  A little Alexie goes a long way, but that little bit is immensely satisfying.  And the feeling lingers; after reading one of his stories, I think about it for hours and sometimes days.

The best story in the collection, in my opinion, is "What You Pawn, I Will Redeem." It's a story with a classic structure, comprising 24 hours in Jackson Jackson's life, starting when he sees his grandmother's dance regalia in the window of a pawn shop.  The pawn broker tells him that if he can raise the $1000 it cost, he will sell it to him. But he gives Jackson only 24 hours to raise the cash or the deal is off.  He even gives Jackson $20 to get him started on his quest.

And it is a quest, like that of Odysseus in a way--a long, winding journey that gets sidetracked many times because, you see, Jackson is a homeless alcoholic who tends to spend any money he comes into on alcohol.  He has many friends, though, including the local police officer, who accompany him at various points on his journey.  It seems likely that Jackson will not succeed, but as with many of Alexie's stories, miracles (of the earthly sort) have a way of happening.  The outcome is unexpected, and very satisfying.  I recommend this book highly.

My next book will be non-fiction, and in keeping with my alphabetical selection method (I'm still in the As), I'll be reading Beyond Knowing: Mysteries and Messages of Death and Life from a Forensic Pathologist, by Janis Amatuzio. It appears to be a memoir of Dr. Amatuzio's life and career as a pathologist, with the focus on mysteries of death, in particular spiritual mysteries. It looks interesting; I'll let you know what I think later.