Ten Little Indians
Stories
Book - 2003
Sherman Alexie is one of our most acclaimed and popular writers today. With Ten Little Indians, he offers nine poignant and emotionally resonant new stories about Native Americans who, like all Americans, find themselves at personal and cultural crossroads, faced with heartrending, tragic, sometimes wondrous moments of being that test their loyalties, their capacities, and their notions of who they are and who they love.
In Alexie's first story, "The Search Engine," Corliss is a rugged and resourceful student who finds in books the magic she was denied while growing up poor. In "The Life and Times of Estelle Walks Above," an intellectual feminist Spokane Indian woman saves the lives of dozens of white women all around her to the bewilderment of her only child. "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" starts off with a homeless man recognizing in a pawn shop window the fancy-dance regalia that was stolen fifty years earlier from his late grandmother.
Even as they often make us laugh, Alexie's stories are driven by a haunting lyricism and naked candor that cut to the heart of the human experience, shedding brilliant light on what happens when we grow into and out of each other.
In Alexie's first story, "The Search Engine," Corliss is a rugged and resourceful student who finds in books the magic she was denied while growing up poor. In "The Life and Times of Estelle Walks Above," an intellectual feminist Spokane Indian woman saves the lives of dozens of white women all around her to the bewilderment of her only child. "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" starts off with a homeless man recognizing in a pawn shop window the fancy-dance regalia that was stolen fifty years earlier from his late grandmother.
Even as they often make us laugh, Alexie's stories are driven by a haunting lyricism and naked candor that cut to the heart of the human experience, shedding brilliant light on what happens when we grow into and out of each other.
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Publisher:
New York : Grove Press, c2003.
ISBN:
9780802141170
080214117X
9780965259682
0965259684
9780802117441
080214117X
9780965259682
0965259684
9780802117441
Characteristics:
243 p. ;,21 cm.
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Add a Comment“The two funniest tribes I’ve ever been around are Indians and Jews, so I guess that says something about the inherent humor of genocide.”
npr.org/2018/03/05/589909379/it-just-felt-very-wrong-sherman-alexies-accusers-go-on-the-record
As someone who enjoys both short stories as a form and self-aware humor as a device, I enjoyed all of these stories. All his characters are their own, distinct in voice and outlook, united by anxiety and narrative strength. There's nothing polished or glossy in Ten Little Indians, and that's one of the books strengths; it takes the good with the bad and makes it all important - all thoroughly worth reading, and funny even where it can't exactly be fun.
As an aside, I didn't find the sexuality in the book nearly as gratuitous or jarring as several of the other commentators here. About eight months later, I only remember two cases: one of the most painfully honest accounts of racial fetishization I've read, and one of the most memorable & touching scenes involving both a children's hospital and a dildo.
This is the type of literary "super-realistic-warts-and-all" style that I don't really like. But this was for a more-important-than-average book group, so I made a greater-than-average effort to finish. I didn't like the casual (and very crass) sexuality thrown in at the beginning for no real reason, but Alexie either put it in the earlier stories to weed out the undedicated, or I got used to it. However, I liked a few of the stories, and I found some lines that really resonated with me: From Flight Patterns "He invested much of his money in socially responsible funds. Imagine that! Imagine choosing to trust your money with companies that supposedly made their millions through ethical means. Imagine the breathtaking privilege of such a choice." And from The Life and Times of Estelle Walks Above "I don't understand her, not then or now. She's a contradiction. She has always contained multitudes."
Well, I only made it thru the 4th story. That is all I care to read. I didn't like any of the stories and I didn't care for the writing. It appears that I am definitely in the minority here but I thought the 4 stories that I did read were awful. The sexual references seemed to just be thrown in simply to show that he could and didn't seem to me to add anything of any value to any of the stories I did manage to read. I have absolutely no desire to read any more of this book. Maybe someone in one of my book clubs can convince me otherwise and if so, maybe I'll put this one on a different shelf but if not I will be more than happy to give this one back.
Alexie is a very funny man, if you are not too thin skinned about being an "Anglo" (not his term). He also gives us insights into lives of very unusual people that we might not notice around us. I'm not a short story fan and this isn't his very best work, but any Alexie is pretty darn good, for the above reasons.