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Sherm Alexie at UO
Stories to share.
T E N L IT TL E I N DI AN S , stories by Sherman
Alexie. Grove Press, 2003. Paperback, $13.
S ushi Station
Sushi starting at $1.75
BY LOIS WADSWORTH
E
ach of the nine stories in Sherm
Alexie’s latest collection stands
alone, yet read sequentially,
the stories build the reader’s ap-
preciation for Alexie’s story-
telling artistry. He handles
language beautifully, cre-
ates characters we care
about and ponders details
that situate his stories in
the real world, but Alexie
is foremost a storyteller.
Whether you sit around a fire
and tell stories on a summer
night or hole up in a house on the
coast and take turns reading them to
each other on a rainy day, Alexie’s rhythmic
language lends itself to being read aloud.
These are stories to share.
When Alexie reads at 7 pm on May 12 in
150 Columbia on the UO campus, come pre-
pared to experience a wordsmith and per-
formance artist with a passion for telling sto-
ries.
“Flight Patterns” tells William’s story, a
husband and father who must leave his desir-
able wife and loving child still in bed on a
Seattle morning. William, who is flying to a
meeting in Chicago, feels that he’s always
leaving the people he most wants to be with.
On this morning, his talkative taxi driver asks
if his wife and daughter are beautiful and if
William misses them when he’s away.
William shares his thoughts with the driver.
“‘I miss them so much I go crazy,’ said
William. ‘I start thinking I’m going to disap-
pear, you know, just vanish, if I’m not home.
Sometimes I worry their love is the only
thing that makes me human, you know? I
think if they stopped loving me, I might burn
up, spontaneously combust, and turn into lit-
tle pieces of oxygen and hydrogen and car-
bon. Do you know what I’m saying?’”
William and the driver, an Ethiopian man
named Fekadu, swap stories.
Fekadu left his wife and sons
30 years earlier when he de-
fected from a dictatorship
by flying his military
plane to France, where
he received asylum.
He’s never seen them
again. By the end of their
journey to the airport, the
men have found common
cause, laughed together and
understood each other. And
William has found the resolve to fol-
low his heart.
The first story in the collection, “The
Search Engine,” is about a Native American
college student named Corliss, who discov-
ers a book of poems by a man claiming to be
a Spokane. No one knows anything about
him. Her curiosity leads her to find him. The
poet tells her he hadn’t written a poem in 30
years, but when he did write it was to feel like
he belonged, “to feel more Indian.”
In each story, Alexie shows us how it is
for his Native American characters to live in
white America now. Sardonically, often sadly
or hilariously, Alexie gives us a perspective
on our dominant culture that we need, a cure
for a social illness we might not even know
we have. But once we’ve taken in his words,
the world seems better balanced than before.
I doled out these stories over a couple of
weeks, savoring each one and allowing it to
work on me as I slept. I’m grateful to Alexie
for making me happy about his work.
Alexie’s exuberant yet lyrical stories shed
light and love on our human condition. ew
Book Notes May 6 — June 3 2004: The Spring issue of Etude: the Journal of
Literary Nonfiction now available online at http://etude.uoregon.edu includes interviews,
feature stories, essays, reviews and more. …Poet B.H. Fairchild (Occult Memory Systems
of the Lower Midwest), recent winner of National Book Critics Circle Award, reads at 8 pm
on May 6 in 282 Lillis (the new Business building across street from UO Bookstore).
…Dawn G. Stuart speaks on “Book Marketing in the 21st Century” at 7 pm on May 6 in
Baker Downtown Center. Mid-Valley Willamette Writers’ members free; $5 non-members.
…Calvin Trillin, Mary Karr and Robert Stone read “A Dramatic Dialogue adapted from
the letters, essays and notebooks of Ernest Hemingway and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald”
at 8 pm on May 8 at the First Congregational Church, Portland. Tickets (503) 227-2583.
…Phil Condon (Clay Center) reads at 7 pm on May 10 in Knight Library Browsing Room,
UO campus. …Former Eugene novelist Diana Abu-Jaber (Crescent) reads in Portland at
12:30 pm on May 10 in Annie Blooms (7834 SW Capitol Highway). …Sherman Alexie (Ten
Little Indians: Stories) reads at 7 pm on May 12 in 150 Columbus Hall. …Martin Prechtel
(The Toe Bone and the Tooth) reads at 7 pm on May 13 in Tsunami Books. …Mark
Pearson (Europe From a Backpack: Real Stories from Young Travelers Abroad) reads at
7 pm on May 17 in EMU International Lounge, UO. …Poet Martha Silano (What the Truth
Tastes Like) and personal essayist Bette Lynch Husted (Above the Clearwater) read at
7 pm on May 18 in Eugene Public Library downtown. …Essayist Kathleen Dean Moore
(Pine Island Paradox) reads at 7 pm on May 20 in 100 Willamette Hall, UO campus. …Ana
Maria Spagna (Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging and the Crosscut Saw) reads at 2
pm on May 22 in UO Bookstore. Spagna also reads at 7 pm on May 21 in Corvallis at Grass
Roots Books. …Radio commentator David Barsamian (Louder Than Bombs) speaks at 7
pm on May 24 in Eugene, First United Methodist Church, sliding scale $5-$10. Barsamian
also speaks at 7 pm on May 19 in Corvallis, Oddfellows Hall; and at 4 pm on May 22 in
Florence, Siuslaw Public Library. ….James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) speaks at 7:30
pm on May 26 in Portland, Powells Books. …Tom Cantwell (The Seminole and the Slave)
reads at 7:30 pm on June 2 in Sheldon Community Center (2245 Willakenzie, next to
Sheldon H.S.). …Essayist Brian Doyle (Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies) presents
the four award winners in Oregon Quarterly’s Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest at 7
pm on June 3 in Gerlinger Alumni Lounge.
3 4
MAY 6, 2004