Indian Killer

I've read a short story by Alexie that was decent, and I even found the film Smoke Signals to be watchable. This particular attempt at a full-length novel, however, really is not worth reading. Alexie has achieved something in common with Quentin Tarantino and John Irving, which is stretching both thinly drawn characters and hastily sketched scenes together, falling well short of the impression of a more holistic work. The result is that there's no real novelistic synergy. The opening chapter with the cascade of noun phrases with no predicates foreshadows all too well how generally under-developed the remainder of the novel is. Perhaps the writer impressed himself as much as his devotees with how confrontational the book was as a defiant slap in the face against a dominant culture. The violent scenes truly only reveal the force of the author more than his finesse. The book shows what Henry Miller's or Norman Mailer's writings would have been like if they had also lacked continuity. The work contains a ferocity that accidentally impugns the ranter as much as the intended object of the rant. I offer the example of a character in the novel who despised whites for objectifying non-white women through producing interracial pornography. And what exactly did the author himself hope to find when he first explored pornography? Was he perhaps opening a Playboy, expecting to see a spread titled, 'The Girls of Northwest Indian College'? This novel shows that Alexie is as capable himself at hideous objectification of people of another race as any director of porn. If someone had gouged out my eyes for being too blue (like in the scene of capricious violence in the book), I would be even more angry if it hadn't been done timely enough for me to have a medical excuse for not reading this last, and certainly least, book of the syllabus of the lit course I took. I once read that Alexie said he didn't believe in writer's block, and that it seemed merely an excuse for laziness. I do believe that writer's block is very real for writers who care about achieving well-deserved praise for their work. If a writer is shameless, greedy, or penniless enough to not mind hastily submitting first drafts, then I understand why he wouldn't believe in writer's block.

This novel is a ghost story, a murder mystery, a psychological thriller, and a historical narrative reflecting the slow erosion of the native peoples of North America. It was uncomfortable to read, yet comforting to know that I’m not alone in my observations and my interpretations of the facts behind the systematic destruction, abuse, and dissolution of the first people over the past three to four centuries. And, to focus the issues and themes of cultural domination and destruction through the prism of interracial/transracial adoption speaks deeply to me, as a transracial adoptee myself.

I was pleased with Sherman Alexie’s prose and storytelling acumen. The characters had a life and an independence all their own, and most importantly (for me at least), their personalities, language and motivations appeared to be realistic and believable. This is the reason why the story captivated me and kept me turning the pages to find out what happens next.

Now, I understand that the main character, John Smith, and his role as the adoptee in this story can be quite problematic and troublesome to us adoptees because of his severely conflicted and broken nature. Much of society, judging from how the media treats us adoptees and describes us, chooses to paint us as unwanted dolls in need of saving and when eventually saved, unable to fully integrate into our adoptive families because of our early separation from the first parental unit. I could see how a novel like the Indian Killer could simply reinforce these stereotypical assumptions about those who are adopted, especially transracially, in a naive audience.

With that said, I found the John Smith character scarily relatable based around the circumstances of my own adoption, my own upbringing, and my own life experiences. Many times during the story I felt like I had entered John Smith’s head or he in mine. I related to his learned and brooding silence, the acts of prejudice and discrimination that reinforced such inner and outer silence in him, and his vivid and searching daydreams that offered an alternative to an even more depressing and violent reality.

Indian Killer can act like a vision, an affirmation, a warning, or a revelation, depending on who you are, where you’ve been and the times you’re living in. While reading this book, the actual murders were not of real importance to me, but rather the subconscious and explicit forces that motivated the killer to commit them in the first place.

“Indian Killer” by Sherman Alexie is a fictional novel. It addresses topics about white guilt, open racism, authentic Native American experience, and the alienation of oneself. The author’s purpose for this work is to illustrate the life of a Native American without a tribe. John the main character cannot align with either the Native American people or the white people. The gruesome events that the main character John encounters reflect the treatment of the Native American people in the mid-90s. Anyone with an interest in Native American writing will most likely enjoy reading this novel. It is a bit gory, so it is also not for the faint of heart. This novel identifies how the Native American population is alienated through the perspective of an outsider. If you have any interest in American Indian Literature and cultures then this is a book for you. It keeps you guessing and wanting more.

One of my favorites

I first have to get this of my chest: Those other reviewers who claim that Alexie's White characters in "Indian Killer" are cardboard are lacking imagination themselves. I have met all of these characters and their attitudes to Indians; heck, I have even BEEN them at one point or another in my life!

I greatly enjoyed reading the book. However, it left me puzzled at the very end. If you're writing a novel on interracial killings, you'd better have a message IMO. Not since every or even most novels should have any message at all, but I beg to differ for novels on interracial killings. Interracial murders should not be used as mere plot devices.
The end seemed highly masturbatory. (SPOILERS, maybe?) I-as-member-of-the-White-oppressors simply couldn't take it serious. I realized with slight bewilderment that I would have even taken mass murder at the hands of aliens or witches more serious. So the question of audience arises, for two reasons:
1) If the intention was to make White readers identify their own prejudices, then "Indian Killer" seems not to have worked for most reviewers here (maybe including me?).
2) Since the ending doesn't 'work' for me (i.e. 'scare' me), where does that leave me as White reader? Is this book's only intended audience Indians and other PoC, who get to indulge in "If-only-we'd-kill-em-all" porn? If so, fair enough, reader FAIL on my part. (Otherwise, I'd just have personally liked more "thriller" in the end and less "fade to black").

Understanding Sherman Alexie is a little complicated, a little conflicting. Listen to him speak and he'll stress that he's just a typical guy, that there's nothing really that mystical about being a Spokane Indian, or American Indian in general. Read one of his works, though, and you'll find his magic oozing between each page. Magic that's woven with tenderness, rage, and humor that's distinctly and unabashedly Indian. Magically real and real magic.

Such was my hunch after reading Indian Killer. Much more than a mystery, Indian Killer is an epic construct of the alienated and isolated American Indian, perhaps even just the American experience. Alexie interweaves the interconnectedness of a disparate set of characters, Indian and otherwise, within the mist and cold of Seattle.

The main theme of the story deals with the advancement of John Smith, adopted Spokane Indian by a young non-native couple from Seattle into adulthood. Smith is the symbol, the representation of alienation and marginalization, his actions set around a series of violent murders unhinging the city. The greater story, however, concerns itself more around the other archetypes Alexie so often seems conflicted with: the whites who are Indians of the "Wannabe Tribe", the academics who hijack Indian stories, the perpetually exploited and oppressed Indians, and the rednecks who take advantage when the right moment arises.

Alexie artfully interweaves each of these elements, while simultaneously providing beautifully rich detail of the setting. His description of Seattle, though not forced, is intensely deliberate. The distinctive neighborhoods, the dank roadways, the huddled yet resilient groups of homeless, the bookstores, and the water that envelops, isolates each.

In short, Indian Killer is a masterpiece. Sherman Alexie brings the Indian, but leaves the human imprint on the reader. It's a tragedy that belongs within the realm of magical realism, though savoring the magic within his writing is supremely uplifting.

Sherman's books are well thought and complex. The man knows his craft.

A creative writing instructor of mine once said, "Those who write poetry tend to love people, but those who write fiction tend to hate people." According to him, because a novel has to put its characters through so many obstacles, a novelist has to have a streak of sadism. Perhaps it's because Sherman Alexie is also a consummate poet that his love for his characters always shines through his fiction, especially in his first short story collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and his first novel, Reservation Blues. It seems a little strange, then, that Alexie chose a serial killer as the subject matter for his second novel, Indian Killer. This seemed like particularly dark subject matter for an author whose writing can be laugh out loud funny.

Indian Killer spans a number of different characters whose paths constantly criss-cross, but they all orbit around a series of violent murders in Seattle by a perpetrator dubbed "The Indian Killer." The Indian Killer gets his name because he stalks, murders, and scalps his victims and then leaves behind two owl feathers. The plot seems like it might belong to those modern day dime store novels, the airport paperback. And while Alexie indulges in elements of the thriller--there are tense scenes where we don't know whether the killer will get his victim or not all written, like the point of view shot at the beginning of Halloween, from the perspective of "the killer"--he is far more interested in how these acts of violence are read by and acted upon by the residents of Seattle. Four hundred years of racial resentment and anger between whites and American-Indians boil over thanks to these murders.

If there is a main character, then it is the absurdly named Native-American, John Smith, who was adopted by a wealthy, well-meaning white couple from Seattle. As John grows up, he becomes increasingly alienated from his white parents. Despite the fact that his parents have the means to send him to college, John takes on a job in construction after graduating from high school, but even in this environment he's an outsider. It's hard not to read descriptions of John's awkward interactions with people--his inability to read others and strange social maneuverings--and not think about autism. Alexie appears to be using mental development disorders as a sort of metaphor for cultural estrangement. As an Indian raised by white parents, John belongs to a culture of one.

In addition to John, the other central native character is Marie, a Native-American activist and college student. While the murders are happening, Marie, an English major, is taking a course on Native-American literature by an anthropology professor, Dr. Mather. Mather is a white native sympathizer, who prides himself on his enlightened attitude towards American-Indians, but becomes increasingly incensed when Marie consistently challenges his notions about native cultures because he lacks an experiential component. For Marie, Mather's knowledge is suspect because he has never really lived on the rez.

Mather is affecting a kind of passing (he loves to mention that he has been adopted by Native-American tribes), and this passing is echoed by another character, Jack Wilson, a mystery writer who holds onto a historically suspect idea that one of his ancestors may have been a famous Seattle Indian. Wilson, who used to be a police officer, writes mystery paperbacks about a Native-American, Aristotle Little Hawk, who also happens to be a private detective. Wilson engages in representations of Native-Americans that Alexie hopes to disfigure with his literature. Alexie describes the love plot of the average Aristotle Little Hawk novel in the following manner: "A beautiful white woman fell in love with Little Hawk in each book, although he was emotionally distant and troubled. The beautiful white woman fell in love with Little Hawk because he was emotionally distant and troubled." But even as Wilson gives in to Native-American tropes, unable to break out of a narrative that has been building for four hundred years, he is also naively well-meaning. He wishes to honor what he sees as his own Native-American ancestry, even though he is blonde and blue-eyed.

Much of the novel allows for Alexie to play with notions of identity. The anthropology professor, Dr. Mather, seems to be an attack on academics who would unravel notions of authenticity. Often these academics tend to come from wealthy or middle class backgrounds and are more interested in abstract notions of race than in the day to day material experience of minorities in America. Likewise, Wilson wants to have race both ways. He wants the benefits of a white experience while also holding onto an ersatz native background that legitimizes his occupation of native lands. Marie's angry and exasperated attack on those who don't fully understand Native-American experience in the 20th/21st century seems to be Alexie's way of pushing against these condescending liberals. But on the other end of the spectrum, there is Truck Schultz, a conservative radio personality that represents America's bigoted id. Unlike Wilson and Dr. Mather, Truck is explicitly anti-Indian, and his radio program keeps dredging up racist discourse from centuries past. For Alexie, these are the twin poles of misguided white beliefs about Native peoples.

Even though the novel goes to some violent and dark places, Alexie never fully lets go of his sense of humor. He once referred to the book as a "feel good novel about interracial murder." And you get a sense that Alexie really cares for his characters, even for those whom he disagrees with. Still, this creates a somewhat uneven tone for the entire book. If Indian Killer is less successful than Alexie's earlier work, it is because he is pushing his craft forward. Maybe he will develop a streak of sadism, yet.

Before people start squawking, relax- I'm white. A joke. Anyway, Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer follows a troubled Indian named John Smith, who was adopted by white parents as a baby. While John struggles with his mental diseases and being self-sufficient, the Indian Killer decides to take Seattle hostage. Part mystery, part sociological exploration, the Indian Killer is an interesting, quick read.

Pros
- Quick moving, as a result of being action-packed and full of dialogue.
- Several interesting characters (also a con, though, see below) who were at times unpredictable.
- An important look at a different side of the American Indian perception; there is still a lot of deep-rooted anger that stems from the pain inflicted on ancestors that tends to get swept under the rug.
- I also really appreciated the way the homeless were portrayed in the novel; Alexie gave them a voice.

Cons
- Many of the characters lacked the depth they would have received, I'm sure, if there were fewer of them.
- The writing was definitely not as good as the story; I think Alexie was definitely writing for the general population. This is fine, it just doesn't get high marks from me as far as the complexity or depth of prose.

All in all a great read that I actually would love to teach to my high school students some day.

I am usually not a mystery fan, but this book ranks right up there with some of the best books of any genre. I am coming to the end of the book and have still not figured it out. A story about the American Indian plight of having to live in two worlds. I cannot put myself if their world, but I can certainly empathsize. John Smith, adopted by a white family at birth, knows he doesn't fit in. He leaves only to feel alienated by other native people in Seattle. When murders begin to happen which point to an Indian killing, there is blame everywhere. John Smith hears voices of his ancestors and a priest who John believes had mystical powers, which leaves him even more conflicted. Sherman Alexie is a writer who can bring the reader into the scene and the lives of the people so that the reader hangs on every page.