Flight, by Sherman Alexie
Teenage half-Indian, half-Irish "Zits" has spent his life being bounced in and out of foster homes and juvenile detention. One day, in yet another holding cell, he meets an angelic revolutionary of a white boy who calls himself Justice, seduces Zits with talk of bringing back the Ghost Dance, and eventually sends him out alone to randomly shoot up a bank.
In a dreamlike sequence, Zits begins firing, is shot by a security guard, and finds himself in the body of a crooked FBI agent in 1975. And then in the body of a teenage Indian at the battle of Little Big Horn. He bounces from body to body and time to time, confronting various iterations of violence, betrayal, and loss.
It's a compelling, thought-provoking, page-turning novel, and Zits is a great narrator. Without his black teenage humor and irrepressible teenage sexual longings, the story might be too painful to read. But after a fantastic build-up, the ending seemed narratively pat and thematically muddy.
Narratively pat: He gets adopted by the super-nice family of the super-nice cop, and shows no sign whatsoever of not being able to adjust.
Thematically muddy: I am not sure what to make of him being adopted by a white family after an entire complex story about the genocidal Indian-white relations throughout history. I'd also think Zits would at least consider it as a source of possible conflict or angst.
I'm also not sure what to make of the entire episode with Jimmy the pilot. He overcame his racist reaction to a Muslim guy who wanted to be a pilot, trained him... and then he did turn out to be a terrorist. I think Alexie was going for a parallel with Crazy Horse's betrayal by Indians, but when the entire story so far is about Indians and white people, having the only Middle-Eastern character turn out to be a terrorist seemed stereotypical in a way that the rest of the story argued against.
This makes a nice companion piece to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Click here to buy that from Amazon: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
), which deals with some similar issues but is lighter on the surface though just as dark in places; I also thought it was more thematically coherent and the ending felt more earned and believable. I reviewed that here. No spoilers are at that link.
Click here to buy Flight from Amazon: Flight: A Novel
In a dreamlike sequence, Zits begins firing, is shot by a security guard, and finds himself in the body of a crooked FBI agent in 1975. And then in the body of a teenage Indian at the battle of Little Big Horn. He bounces from body to body and time to time, confronting various iterations of violence, betrayal, and loss.
It's a compelling, thought-provoking, page-turning novel, and Zits is a great narrator. Without his black teenage humor and irrepressible teenage sexual longings, the story might be too painful to read. But after a fantastic build-up, the ending seemed narratively pat and thematically muddy.
Narratively pat: He gets adopted by the super-nice family of the super-nice cop, and shows no sign whatsoever of not being able to adjust.
Thematically muddy: I am not sure what to make of him being adopted by a white family after an entire complex story about the genocidal Indian-white relations throughout history. I'd also think Zits would at least consider it as a source of possible conflict or angst.
I'm also not sure what to make of the entire episode with Jimmy the pilot. He overcame his racist reaction to a Muslim guy who wanted to be a pilot, trained him... and then he did turn out to be a terrorist. I think Alexie was going for a parallel with Crazy Horse's betrayal by Indians, but when the entire story so far is about Indians and white people, having the only Middle-Eastern character turn out to be a terrorist seemed stereotypical in a way that the rest of the story argued against.
This makes a nice companion piece to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Click here to buy that from Amazon: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
), which deals with some similar issues but is lighter on the surface though just as dark in places; I also thought it was more thematically coherent and the ending felt more earned and believable. I reviewed that here. No spoilers are at that link.
Click here to buy Flight from Amazon: Flight: A Novel