Sherman Alexie Makes Me Fly

A few weeks ago, I went to my local library. I had to return a book, my third in a row from Rachel DeWoskin. I had tried unsuccessfully to renew it for a second time, but to my horror, somebody had dared to put a hold on it!

Let me confess right here that I am a terrible library patron. I always renew books and movies, even magazines, several times while they sit on my bedside table waiting for me to read or watch them. But it was hopeless this time, so I went to the library on my way back from work to return the book. I reluctantly put it in the return slot. When I stopped reading, Rachel was about to enter a Beijing TV studio and become a Chinese soap opera star.

I felt bereft, I had no book lined up to follow this “premature” return. But I shouldn’t have feared. The Terry Fox Library in Port Coquitlam was still doing the mystery bags. Again, they had them all lined up, ready to go on the counter. Of course, I grabbed one.

The titles this time were:

The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace

Invisible Monsters Remix, by Chuck Palahniuk

A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers

Half Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan

Flight, by Sherman Alexie

A very impressive and exciting list. But as I didn’t know where to start, I grabbed the one with the most unappealing cover. I told myself: this will probably be my favourite book on this pile.

So I jumped from 1990s Beijing to the story of a Native American teenager called Zits. He is an orphan, and when the story starts, he has just moved in with his new foster family. Flight, by Sherman Alexie, is the brilliant time-travelling story of a young kid in search of his ancestors.  After committing a terrible crime, Zits travels back to a pivotal moment in contemporary Native American history. After a shocking discovery, he keeps travelling to different times and places and inhabiting the bodies of somebody different each time.

By making Zits inhabit different bodies and experience many different points of view, Alexie helps the reader sympathize with each of the characters and their suffering, and to see more clearly their motivations and reasoning. By doing this, Sherman Alexie effectively demonstrates the power of finally understanding the other side of the story, what the powerful revelation of getting somebody else’s point of view feels like.  We know the story is never, ever one-sided; why do we forget this all the time?

Beaten up, shaken, exhilarated and illuminated by the thoughts and feelings of others (including an FBI agent, an old, pain-ridden “Indian tracker,” and a mute Indian boy forced to commit a horrible act of revenge), Zits finally comes to terms with his situation, his history and more importantly, his future-what he will decide to become.

This novel’s richness, depth and beauty, though short and very funny, cannot be overstated. Alexie touches on some very serious issues and effortlessly blends historical events and commentary on race and Native American history with the fantastical transformations and reflections of Zits as he moves through time.

Even though I could only read two and a half books from this pile, I’m glad I picked Flight. Sherman Alexie and his words took me on a flight through laughter and some real, heartbreakingly beautiful, poetic moments.