About.com Rating



Grove Press
June 2003
ISBN: 0802117449

"Nine is a much funnier number than eleven," explained Sherman Alexie in a recent book signing for Ten Little Indians, a collection of nine contemporary Native American tales. This much-anticipated work dances the line between banality and classic Alexie brilliance at its best, leaving the reader exuberate at its finish, but almost wishing they hadn't read those first few.

Playing on the politically incorrect nursery rhyme in which Ten Little Indians all lose their lives in disturbing idiotic ways, Alexie attempts to break the feathers and loin cloth Indian image. His little Indians are Republicans, Homeless, Forest Rangers, Basketball Stars, Half Black, Poets whose lives involve much more than smoke signals and pow-wows.

It is evident that Alexie started the book around the wake of September 11th. Numerous stories mention the date as a point of awakening for the characters even though 90% of the stories take place in Seattle, almost as far west as you can get from NYC. Of the nine tales, four stood above the rest. Not a bad batting average when it comes to a collection. One of those four was particularly influenced by those events on the 11th: "Can I Get a Witness?

" In the story, a middle-aged wife and mother of two is inside a restaurant when a man comes in with a bomb strapped to his chest. Right before he detonates it we get a short glimpse of her smiling at him.

A complete reversal of the propaganda filled terrorist tale, we find out the woman had romanticized about being in such an event, not simply to die, but to use it to fake her death, and run away from her average life. One witness saw her come out of the building, however, and the strange affair that follows is both is touching and an utterly unique literary scenario.

Alexie is at his best when he is writing dialogue. Perhaps that is why the printing of one of his Little Indians "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" in The New Yorker caused such an uproar of praise. Alexie claimed all of the other fan mail he had received for his 10+ books was nothing compared to the huge amounts flooding in over one short story in a weekly magazine filled to the brim with other short stories. It is the tale of a Native American homeless man, Jackson Jackson, on a quest to make $1000 in one day to win back his grandmother's stolen regalia from a pawn shop.

Avoiding being sappy nor preachy, it tells a tale of despair as a comedy, and makes an utterly lovable hero out of an alcoholic old man.

"Jackson," said the cop. "Is that you?"
"Officer Williams," I said. He was a good cop with a sweet tooth. He's given me hundreds of candy bars over the years. I wonder if he knew I was diabetic.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked.
"I was cold and sleepy," I said. "So I laid down."
"You dumb-ass, you passed out on the railroad tracks. What the hell's wrong with you?" Officer Williams asked. "You've never been this stupid."
"It's my grandmother," I said. "She died."
"I'm sorry man. When did she die?"
"1972."

Now it would be a lie to say that Ten Little Indians is Alexie's greatest literary work. His first short story collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, was smoother and more consistent throughout, but "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" is his best-written and most compelling short story to date. It is utter proof that Alexie is and continues to be one of the best writers of our generation.