Maintenance Manager Jerry McDonald recommends works by author Sherman Alexie.
When I first heard of Sherman Alexie, I was telling a friend and his wife that I had just received a letter from the Department of Indian Affairs. My mother had passed away about four years ago and the Department was notifying me of an upcoming hearing in Spokane about her estate. My friend’s wife asked if I’ve ever heard of Sherman Alexie. She went on to tell me that Alexie is a writer and a poet, and made a movie about growing up on the same Spokane Indian Reservation where my mother was born. The movie, she said, is called, Smoke Signals.
I later Googled Sherman Alexie and ordered his book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alexie is quoted as saying this semi-autobiographical book it’s about 78% true.
This past summer Sherman Alexie came to The Community Library for the annual Ernest Hemingway Seminar, this year themed, “Fathers and Sons”. Alexie spoke to a packed audience of 200 and introduced the Smoke Signals film he wrote the script for in 1998. Smoke Signals is funny yet very serious. It starts with the Reservation radio announcer talking about a car going by on the highway and how this event affects the doldrums of the day.
It’s a good day to be Indigenous!
You can’t help but enjoy this laid back vibe of life on the Rez, but the movie quickly changes to some serious flashbacks of a house on fire after a Fourth of July party, and the two main characters, Victor and Thomas when they were kids. Victor’s father, Arnold, rescues Thomas from the fire and Thomas is forever grateful to him. But Victor’s experience with his father is mostly negative. His father has a drinking problem and becomes violent with Victor and his mother and eventually abandons them and moves to Phoenix.
Then the story changes back to the present and Victor’s mom tells him that his father has died. The relationship between Victor and Thomas becomes the center point as Thomas offers to give Victor the money to go to Phoenix with his father’s ashes. But Thomas says that he wants to go as part of the deal. Victor finally allows Thomas to go even though Thomas is not well liked by Victor.
So off they go on a bus trip with a jar of money and a jar of ashes.
They laugh and argue and sing a song about John Wayne’s teeth. It is a movie without special effects and a large cast of actors. It is simple yet compelling, but never predictable. I thoroughly enjoyed the surprise ending, as it gave me a look into my mother’s past and reminded me of the rocky relationship I had with my own father. I have forgiven him for not being around me when I needed him. His father died when he was 14, so like he said, he didn’t know how to be one.
After the movie Sherman had a informative Q & A and mentioned his newsletter on Substack Reads, which I highly recommend. I look forward to reading it just about every day. He writes poems and about things like “Pretendians,” who are depicted in movies but are not real Indians. The newsletter also allows the reader to like the poem or fiction or whatever the author enters, and you can comment on it and then the author can also like your comment and say, Thank You, which I really enjoy.
