10 Little…9 Little…8 Little Indians: a Book Review

Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie was published in 2003 by Grove Press.

I particularly like this cover. There are 10 Indian silhouettes all touching like chain dolls cut out of paper. The Indians wrap around onto the back cover, with one Indian on the spine. The cover is blue, yellow, and black. It's very minimalistic and clean. There are ten Indians on the cover, leading me to think there will be 10 stories in the collection (all with Indians as protagonists). There are 9 stories. This bothered me at first. I really wanted there to be 10 stories. But then my professor suggested that Alexie is the 10th Indian and well, that's really funny. I'm just upset that I didn't think of that.

The collection of stories contains "stories about Native Americans, who like all Americans, find themselves at personal and cultural crossroads, faced with heartrending, tragic, sometimes wondrous moments of being that test their loyalties, their capacities, and their notions of who they are and who they love" (I stole this from the back of the book).
All the protagonists are Indians, more specifically Spokane. Many of the stories deal with relationships between people. Strangers who meet and bond in the face of tragedy, racism, or for the love of poetry.
Love is another continuing theme. The book opens with an epigraph from Sappho, "Love--bittersweet, irrepressible--loosens my limbs and I tremble." This is a sexy epigraph and fits the sexiness of Alexie's stories. For example, Corliss's love for poetry could easily be described by the Sappho epigraph.
There are also themes of race and identity. With the concept of identity, many of the narrators are concerned with being special or at least more than ordinary. Some characters struggle with their Indian heritage.
Many of the stories, especially the ones dealing with death and grieving involve ceremony. In "Do Not Go Gentle" the parents of a sick child buy a vibrator and perform a ceremony to make Mr. Grief go away. In the last story, Frank Snake Church partakes in multiple ceremonies while trying to move past his grief. He pounds the floor while chanting, eats his father's hair, and plays hours upon hours of basketball. The basketball acts as a ceremony--a way to grieve his parents and loss of his youth.

This collection is also very humorous, which is primarily why I love Alexie's writings so much. He has a way of being dark, poignant, and hilarious all in the same story.

Next week: Top 10 Favorite Moments from Ten Little Indians