Review of American Indian Literature

Book Reviews:

Smith, Cynthia Leitich. Rain is Not My Indian Name. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Rain didn’t know the evening that she and her best friend Galen snuck out to celebrate New Year’s Eve alone that it would be the last night she saw him alive. It wasn’t her fault that he died, but Galen’s mother doesn’t seem to want to forgive her so Rain decides to lock herself away in her own world of hurt and guilt. It isn’t until her aunt decides to start an Indian Camp in her hometown that Rain must come out and make a stand. The city council is not sure whether to give Rain’s aunt funding for her camp and Galen’s mother is absolutely against it, especially since Rain herself is not planning on joining the camp. But Rain is more interested in her photography than studying her native heritage. Smith artfully weaves the story of Rain’s torn feelings about not participating in Indian camp well with her guilt and sadness over Galen’s death. Rain is a “mixed blood” Indian, so while she identifies with her Indian roots, it is not the only thing that defines her. Her brother’s hair is blonde and does not look Indian at all, while Rain has darker hair. Still, she is often approached by people who claim that she doesn’t “seem Indian.” Smith presents an image of how one can be Indian while living in the suburbs instead of on a reservation. Her family is broken up but that’s because her mother died several years ago and her father is in the military, not because of alcohol or drug abuse. While it was sometimes difficult to connect with the parade of characters marching in and out of this novel, Smith seemed to be trying to explicitly paint Rain as a normal suburban girl dealing primarily with the death of her best friend and the drama at home after Rain’s brother finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant. Although her aunt’s Indian camp is part of the novel, Smith chose not to make being Indian a conflicted part of Rain’s identity. In doing so, she was able to focus more fully on developing the other parts of Rain’s character.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown
and Company, 2007.

Junior has a problem. He is too skinny, his head is too big, and he has a list of medical problems longer than his size 11 feet. Unfortunately, that isn’t his biggest problem. Junior has decided to transfer from his school on the rez to the Reardan Public School- and turning your back on your people to go to the white school is just something you don’t do if you want to have any friends left. But Junior wants to be a cartoonist, and he knows he has to leave the rez to find hope outside of the troubles with abuse and alcohol that are unfortunately all too common on the rez. To help show Junior’s skill as an artist, Ellen Forney has illustrated the novel with cartoons that Junior has created that are both hilarious and at the same time poignantly paint the picture of the struggles of a young boy dealing with poverty and with what it means to be Indian. One cartoon lists: Why I Actually Miss a Lot of School, with reasons like no money, wakes and funerals, and couldn’t find a ride. Readers will delight in finding each new cartoon which adds a powerful additional dimension to the telling of Junior’s story. Every day is a struggle for Junior to make his way twenty miles down the road to the white school. While Junior didn’t ever seem to fit in on the rez, at least they all looked the same as him. Now he has to deal with fitting in at the white school. To help, he joins the basketball team and befriends the prettiest girl in school, a slightly improbable turn of events. But his troubles aren’t over yet because his new basketball team is scheduled to play his old basketball team from the rez this year. Alexie is not afraid to grapple with many of the problems currently plaguing Indian families in contemporary times- from alcohol and drug misuse, to abuse, to death. Yet he does it so skillfully that instead of having the reader look down upon Junior’s community, they are hopeful for the future. This mix of hope and trouble and nothing but the brutal truth was masterfully blended to leave the reader not sure whether to laugh or cry. One thing is for sure, Sherman Alexie has created a must read novel for readers of any age.

Van Camp, Richard. The Lesser Blessed. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntrye, 1996.

High school senior Larry narrates this moving tale of love, loss, and what friendship really means. Larry is a Dogrib Indian who lives with his single mother in a small community in northern Canada. While not always popular, he pays attention in school and seems to be a good student until he meets Johnny Beck, a rebel who doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything. Larry is immediately drawn to this freewheeling lifestyle because he seems anything but; he’s skinny, nervous, and deathly afraid of girls. Yet the two of them bond and Larry gradually sinks into the life of a hard partier. Van Camp is not one to shy away from explicit sexual scenes and drug use, which might not make this appropriate for younger readers, but at the same time they seem absolutely necessary to convey the story that he is trying to tell. They are used not in a way that condones such behavior, but they to help illuminate the true human condition through the moments of clarity Larry has about his childhood while he is high. While Van Camp traditionally writes novels for an adult audience, his first foray into young adult fiction has an appeal that will reach out to both adolescents and adults alike. The language is almost lyrical at times and it jumps off the page and deep into your psyche. At one point Larry and Johnny are high and stumbling down the street late at night when they see two drunken brothers fighting with each other over nothing. Larry turns to Johnny and says, "They're ghosts Johnny. Nobody's told them they died. Nobody's told them they're dead.” These haunting insights into the effects of drugs and alcohol on a person are sprinkled throughout the tale, whether Larry is really aware of it or not. This story will keep you up late at night burrowed under your covers due to Van Camp’s tremendous power as a story teller. His haunting tale does not end once you have finished the last page but sticks to your soul, just like Larry’s childhood terrors have stuck to his.