He wishes he had the will, pride, and ethnic clarity of Crazy Horse. Afterward, he hesitatingly accepts the sexual advances of an Indigenous woman but immediately regrets the encounter. In “Crazy Horse Dreams,” Victor attends a local powwow where he bets on an acquaintance who he thinks has escaped the pressures of reservation life.
Through this retelling, Victor gains more insight into why his father experiences Jimi Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock as a message of hope. “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock” recounts the major events in Victor’s father’s life-namely, his incarceration following a Vietnam War protest and his relationship with Victor’s mother. As a result, all three experience visions of each other in the context of a reimagined tribal identity. Escaping a well-attended party, the three travel to Benjamin Lake to experiment with psychoactive mushrooms. “A Drug Called Tradition” introduces three close friends on the Spokane Reservation: Victor Joseph, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, and Junior Polatkin. He wakes to a vicious fight between his uncles at his parents’ New Year’s Eve party. In the first short story, “Every Little Hurricane,” a hurricane startles nine-year-old Victor from his sleep on the Spokane Reservation. Though Alexie offers few happy endings to his plots, preferring open ones, he keeps the possibility of triumph viable.Ĭontent Warning: This study guide references racism and racial stereotypes, genocide, alcohol addiction, violence, incarceration, sexual harassment, and terminal illness. Above all, the stories emphasize the importance of seizing a definable personal and cultural selfhood, whether through traditional tribal methods or not.
They also challenge stereotypes through their blending of pop culture and politics, self-deprecating humor and tradition, and aspiration and generational trauma. The storylines spotlight both internal and external conflict as viewed through the lens of ethnicity, cultural deprivation, and tribal history. The work operates as a bildungsroman in progress, with the characters repeatedly not growing into their identities as Indigenous men. Though the collection lacks a linear structure, the stories are bound together through three reappearing protagonists: Victor Joseph, Junior Polatkin, and Thomas Builds-the-Fire.
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