The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Serman Alexie

Our book club read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Serman Alexie as part of our "Novel with a Native American as a main character" genre. My proposal was Last of the Mohicans. 

The short take on the book was that it was a YA novel about a boy growing up on an Indian reservation who makes the decision to go to the nearby "white" school. I had to sigh when I read that. I mean, the book writes itself: Boy feels like an outsider in both places. He's bullied. He's stereotyped. He aims for a girl way out of his league. He finally settles into some kind of stasis in which he comes to believe he is who he is. Others will not define him. 

And that's the book. Literally. I wasn't exactly disappointed. I just got exactly what I expected. Junior is too smart for the rez, so a teacher urges him to attend the closest public school outside the reservation. Upon discovering his plan, his best friend beats him up. The white students at his new school, where strangely enough a beautiful girl sits in front of him and after a brief introduction ignores him, make fun of him and seem to threaten violence. Plot twist, he eventually kinda gets the girl when he discovers her secret: She, too, feels pressure to perform and conform. Junior eventually develops a level of respect from both communities and realizes he will have to live permanently in both worlds.

Junior's running commentary about the reservation is interesting and had the book sought to dive deeper into those seemingly intractable issues, it would have been more interesting. If Junior would have had to examine himself more deeply for his own blind spots and vices, it would have made for better literature. Instead it's another one of countless, "I never really felt like I belonged" navel-gazing novels. It's Catcher in the Rye for Native Americans. The difference is no one likes Holden Caulfield, while Junior is certainly lovable. I just want to hug him. It's a "let me tell you my story of the particular way in which I discovered that, although I didn't fit in, I had to learn to love myself the way I am." It's actually everyone's story and interesting in its specifics. 

We are so far from literature exposing us to real human foibles and the concomitant search for virtue. My classical teacher self is on full display in that sentence. 

The book is fun. It's dessert. It isn't something you will read twice.