Post by blackcrowheart on Oct 3, 2007 14:11:14 GMT -5
Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie's Web site mentions
that he'll soon publish his first young-adult novel—as if his
brand-new book, Flight, isn't one. Its hero, Zits, certainly owes a
debt to Holden Caulfield and his brand of angsty disaffection: A
violence-prone 15-year-old foster child, Zits wrestles with his identity
(he's half Native American, half Irish) and despairs of finding a
stable home, not to mention a pimple-free existence. Moreover,
Alexie's prose is built on simple declarative sentences, and
he'll occasionally twist characters' names to sell a cute irony.
("Art and Justice fight on opposite sides of the war...") But
Flight's time-travel conceit gives Alexie's messages about war
and race some novelty and depth and keep the book from devolving into
after-school-special fare. Soon after he's brainwashed by a domestic
terrorist into shooting up a bank, Zits finds himself in the body of
(among others) an FBI agent hunting Native American separatists in the
'70s, an Indian boy watching Custer's last stand, a U.S. Cavalry
soldier, and his own father. Zits goes through a lot of teaching moments
in the process, but he never loses the cynicism that darkens and deepens
his character, and Alexie's unflinching observations—like that
of a soldier smashing a girl's head in with his rifle until it
breaks in two—keep the story from becoming politely didactic. Flight
is kiddie lit in the same way that Animal Farm is kiddie lit: It's
an allegory on violence and broken-down societies that gets its power
from its fablelike simplicity.
Sherman Alexie's Web site mentions
that he'll soon publish his first young-adult novel—as if his
brand-new book, Flight, isn't one. Its hero, Zits, certainly owes a
debt to Holden Caulfield and his brand of angsty disaffection: A
violence-prone 15-year-old foster child, Zits wrestles with his identity
(he's half Native American, half Irish) and despairs of finding a
stable home, not to mention a pimple-free existence. Moreover,
Alexie's prose is built on simple declarative sentences, and
he'll occasionally twist characters' names to sell a cute irony.
("Art and Justice fight on opposite sides of the war...") But
Flight's time-travel conceit gives Alexie's messages about war
and race some novelty and depth and keep the book from devolving into
after-school-special fare. Soon after he's brainwashed by a domestic
terrorist into shooting up a bank, Zits finds himself in the body of
(among others) an FBI agent hunting Native American separatists in the
'70s, an Indian boy watching Custer's last stand, a U.S. Cavalry
soldier, and his own father. Zits goes through a lot of teaching moments
in the process, but he never loses the cynicism that darkens and deepens
his character, and Alexie's unflinching observations—like that
of a soldier smashing a girl's head in with his rifle until it
breaks in two—keep the story from becoming politely didactic. Flight
is kiddie lit in the same way that Animal Farm is kiddie lit: It's
an allegory on violence and broken-down societies that gets its power
from its fablelike simplicity.