http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/books/10/31/1031arbalexi
e.html

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Sherman Alexie, without reservations
The newly bestselling young adult author discusses his life as a part-time
Indian

By Carrie Fountain
Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Sherman Alexie has one of those life stories with "memoir" written all over
it. A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he grew up on a reservation in
northeastern Washington. At 6 months, he underwent brain surgery to correct
hydrocephalus; he wasn't expected to survive. When he did, his parents were
told he'd have mental retardation, which goes to show you can't always
trust doctors: Alexie has since published 19 books, including 10 books of
poetry, three short story collections, three novels and two screenplays.

But until Alexie finishes his memoirs, his fans will have to settle for his
new young adult novel, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,"
which tells the story of Arnold, a 14-year-old Spokane Indian boy who, like
Alexie, decides to leave his reservation's school and transfer to an
all-white high school. The book was recently short-listed for the National
Book Award; it's also the first of Alexie's books to make The New York
Times best-seller list.

The American-Statesman caught up with Alexie via cell phone while he was on
a layover in Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

American-Statesman: I've read a lot about your life story, and see a lot of
it in "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." Did you start out
writing a memoir?

Sherman Alexie: Actually, yes. I signed a deal for a family memoir eight
years ago, and this is a surgical excision. That memoir is about my
family's history with World War II. And this year — my first year at the
white high school — just didn't fit. So I pulled it out. And I didn't
really think about it until a young adult editor asked me if I had an idea,
and I thought, "Yes, I do."

Why did you make the book a novel rather than, say, a memoir for young
people?

I didn't want it to be overtly self-aggrandizing. It still is, in some
sense. It's a pretty amazing story, and I didn't want to write some rags to
riches story. By making it fictional, I was able to change Arnold's journey
a bit, make him at the same time smarter and more fragile in ways that made
it a much more — I'm trying to think of the term — well, the funny thing
is, by making it fictional, I made it more realistic.

Was Arnold's voice hard to achieve?

The first two or three drafts of the novel were easy, and then the editing
started. It's like sanding. It's not taking a saw to it; it's taking a
piece of sandpaper and working it for hours and hours.

Your book includes this blurb from Neil Gaiman: "I have no doubt that in a
year or so it'll both be winning awards and being banned." There's some
strong language here. What do you think of the idea that some people might
consider it inappropriate?

Nothing helps a book more. What I've learned is that what a lot of young
adult authors do is, once they hear a book is banned in a school, they ship
copies to the nearest library. With this book and its subject matter and
its intensity, I've become a grunt in the culture war.

Did your editors ever encourage you to make the story more palatable —

Oh, no, no. In fact, in one draft I took out all the cursing, and my editor
asked me to sprinkle some back.

Do you see yourself mainly as a novelist now, or a poet, or a screenwriter?

I mostly write poems. I haven't had a poetry book out in a while, but I
have one next year ("Thrash," Hanging Loose Press). It's a big book,
because it's been a while. This will be my 10th book of poems.

I heard from someone that you're a joke doctor in Hollywood. Is that true?

A script doctor — I haven't done that in a few years. I was rewriting
scripts, making them funnier.

Do you see a connection between poetry and joke writing? It seems to me
they're similarly structured.

It's all in the strategic pause. The caesura, the strategic pause in
poetry, is the same as the strategic pause in a joke. The joke is less
about the words and more about the silences between them. There's music in
stand-up, there's music in comedy, just like there is in poetry. And
nothing kills me more than unfunny poetry. Poetry without wit kills me. The
other extreme kills me, too: wordplay. The new "Best American Poetry": I
hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I can't even believe it. I feel
like Harold Bloom or something. There are poems in it that I like, but
overall the aesthetic — I felt like I was looking at the Hustler magazine
of poetry.

Getting back to your book. Arnold struggles to come to terms with his place
among Indians and Anglos, and often expresses resentment toward his own
culture. What has been the reaction in the American Indian community to
your shedding light on issues like alcoholism and the cycle of poverty on
the reservation?

Throughout my career, I've had these very strong social critics who dislike
my work for all sorts of reasons related to what they view as stereotypical
representation of Native American life. That's always been the case. I've
heard some of that from the Indian community, and I've seen it a little
among teachers — just a little bit. They worry the book validates
stereotypical opinions of Indians.

This argument is actually based on misdefinitions of the word
"stereotypical." "Stereotype" has come to mean "inaccurate," and that's not
what it means. It is completely true that Native Americans have a vast and
epidemic problem with alcohol and addiction and social dysfunction. Anyone
who says different is either a romantic dreamer or a liar. I'm a recovering
alcoholic; it's ludicrous to think that a recovering alcoholic wouldn't be
writing a lot about booze. When you think about literature, it's drug- and
booze-filled, all of it. Among the earliest poems are celebrations of wine.

Arnold struggles with guilt on one hand for having left the reservation,
and pride on the other for having escaped a difficult fate. Knowing that
the book is somewhat based on your life, I wonder if you ever felt that
guilt, and have those feelings changed over the years?

It probably went away the first time I had room service! (He laughs.) It's
certainly, absolutely gone now. I have an amazing life. I am quietly living
one of the greatest lives in American history, (traveling) some of the
vastest distances any American has ever traveled — any human has ever
traveled. And all this success is because I left. All the beauty and joy
I've seen and experienced and been a part of and been witness to is because
I left. I'm glad I left. For the last two years I've been actively and
loudly telling Indians to get off the Rez, which is also a metaphor — I'm
telling anyone of any race or class to get off their real and metaphorical
reservations. "Reservation" is a bad word.

Sherman Alexiewill discuss 'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian' 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Sanctuary, 1201 Lavaca St., and
participate in the 'Not for Required Reading' event 7:30 p.m. Saturday at
the Alamo South, 1120 S. Lamar Blvd.