By Joan Ruddiman Special Writer
Sherman Alexie is a big name in contemporary fiction and poetry. “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” (Little) won the prestigious National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, among other top honors. It deserves every accolade and should be on everyone’s short list — young or old. The premise of the novel, taken from the world of Mr. Alexie, who grew up on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washington State, is how Arnold — a self-described “ reservation Indian” — can survive in an all-white high school and maintain his connections to family and friends on the “rez.”
“I was always the depressed guy in the basement,” Mr. Alexie says. The character of Arnold — a cartoonist — embodies the creative soul of the author, and the dogged determination both share in not giving in to the trials of life, including a hydrocephalus condition. Arnold beats the odds of his difficult birth. “My brain was drowning in grease” — his term for spinal fluid. Mr. Alexie, who is well known as a screenwriter, documented his own struggle with this potentially lethal condition in his film “Learning to Drown.”
But Arnold is far from maudlin about his odd appearance or the alcohol-related deaths and other tragedies that punctuate the novel, just as Mr. Alexie has risen above the harsh realities in his life. Family and friends, as well as hoops and books, sustain both. As Mr. Alexie says of Arnold, “he belongs to the tribe of basketball players and bookworms.”
Though they are similar, Mr. Alexie says that Arnold is fictionalized so as not “to write a triumphant, American dream book that mythologised me.” What he has created is a young adult novel that kids from anywhere and any culture can appreciate, though the “young” part of adult should be eighth grade and older.
In this, his first Young Adult (YA) novel, Mr. Alexie does not pander to adult sensibilities that kid readers shouldn’t be exposed to the evils of the proverbial sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. It’s all there in “True Diary,” but is too funny to be offensive.
You can bet that this is a title that teases teachers and YA librarians to pitch to kids in spite of its edgy content. How to market YA to the appropriate age of teen readers is an ongoing debate.
In a panel discussion hosted by Publisher’s Weekly, Mr. Alexie joined several Young Adult public librarians, reviewers and book sellers in considering what makes a Young Adult book “YA.” Jack Martin, assistant coordinator of YA services at the New York Public Library asserted, “Teen books are like adult books, without all the ‘b-s.’”
Mr. Alexie agreed, saying he was just telling a story. What he created is a YA book that cuts to the heart of conflicts with grace, humor and laser beam insights. Teens recognize the truths behind the fiction in “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” Here’s hoping they find it.
In 1967, S.E. Hinton burst on the publishing scene with the now- classic “The Outsiders,” followed by “That Was Then, This is Now” (1971), “Rumble Fish” (1975), and “Tex” (1979), among others. All are now in mass-market paperback, but in 1967, Viking Publishers had no idea how to handle this novel about older teens locked in social conflict. Their adult readers didn’t care about teen cliques and the poignant devotion of friends and sales were flat. But when they wised up and republished it specifically for teens (better cover and smarter marketing), they sold millions. This was the beginning of the YA market. Certainly social context and characters’ ages — high school and teens — favored a younger “adult” reader.
But there is more to YA, which Mr. Alexie’s awards for excellence in YA-lit recognize. Teen characters are resilient. Arnold takes some huge hits — physical and emotional — and responds with wise cracks and determined resolve. Arnold, like many a YA protagonist, is the outsider that makes good.
Mr. Alexie affirms this theory as he describes how that Stephen King’s “Carrie” influenced his teen years.
Carrie, he says, “was the ultimate nerd.” Yet, what he realized is that “the eventual power of being an outsider; that which makes you a freak when you’re 12 makes you magical when you’re 24.”
He would know, having been a bookish Spokane/Coeur d’Alene (his preferred term) who grows up to be “an important voice in American literature” (The Boston Globe) and affirmed by awards and legions of readers.
Sophisticated readers will enjoy the author’s subtle political commentary. For example, the buffoon “Billionaire Ted” really is Ted Turner, whom Mr. Alexie describes in an interview as an “Indian poseur.” However, the story is told without rancor. He develops good- guy whites, bad-guy Indians and a host of characters whom we appreciate for their human goodness and frailty.
After 10 volumes of poetry, novels, short stories and screenplays, Mr. Alexie says that September 11th changed him and his perspective on his work. It revealed to him, “the lethal end game of tribalism — when you become so identified with only one thing, one tribe, that other people are just metaphors to you.”
This is a theme he plays out in “True Diary” as he explains in an interview with The Guardian in May 2008: “Our isolation has damaged us. Ironically, reservations saved the tribes but killed the individual. I’m for sovereignty of the self.”
Kudos to Sherman Alexie for capturing this spirit of the power of self in his wonderful Arnold, with special recognition to Ellen Forney who provides the funny and very clever cartoon counterpoint to Mr. Alexie’s text. Arnold is a cartoonist, after all, and thanks to Ms. Forney’s talents, his character fully emerges.
Ms. Forney, a graphic artist in Seattle who teaches comics at Seattle Cornish College of the Arts, runs in the same creative circles with Mr. Alexie in town. She certainly deserves to share in the plethora of awards “The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Indian” so justly deserves.
Joan Ruddiman, Ed.D., is the coordinator/facilitator of the gifted and talented PRISM program at the Thomas R. Grover Middle School in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District.

