War Dances

Sherman Alexie has carved a certain niche as an American Indian author. This is my first time reading him in book-length form, but I once saw him give a reading, about ten years ago, at the New Yorker festival. He was paired with Nick Hornby, which is telling, because both have that kind of contemporary smart-ass voice, full of humor and pathos simultaneously.

War Dances is something of a scrapbook, full of short poems and sketches surrounding four longer short stories. As such it's pretty hit or miss, and I wonder if some of the pieces were pulled out of a drawer, as they have the distinct odor of a youthful writer. "The Senator's Son," about a gay-bashing, is particularly tin-eared, with a kind of pat misunderstanding of the conservative ethos (it turns out that the gay man bashed is a Republican).

The other stories are better. "Salt" is a humorous lark about a young man's recollection of a time when he was called on to be the obituaries editor of a newspaper, and "The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless" is a layered look at a traveling salesman and philanderer who becomes obsessed with a woman he meets serendipitously in airports. "Fearful Symmetry" is more ambitious, the story about a writer, not unlike Alexie himself, who is hired to write a screenplay. We get the familiar Hollywood zaniness, but the story takes a strange turn when the narrator enters a crossword puzzle competition.

The best piece is the title story, a stew of various writing styles about a man who loses his hearing in one ear and fears he has a tumor, which makes him think of his deceased father's visit to the hospital to have part of his foot amputated. Of the longer stories, it is the most redolent of Alexie's Indian heritage, and is also gleefully and mordantly funny. The narrator, seeking a warmer blanket than the hospital issue, finds another Indian, and after a brief and friendly conversation, asks to borrow a blanket:

"So you want to borrow a blanket from us?"
"Yeah."
"Because you thought some Indians would just happen to have some extra blankets lying around?"
"Yeah."
"That's fucking ridiculous."
"I know."
"And it's racist."
"I know."
"You're stereotyping your own damn people."
"I know."
"But damn if we don't have a room full of Pendleton blankets."

I've always been fascinated by the indigenous cultures of North America, and how they've adjusted to not only being conquered, but having their way of life and language almost completely eradicated. Alexie, while on the surface a writer of the here and now, has deep roots to the past.