Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie (4/5)
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.
