In his first novel for young adults, bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Tonight we had the chance to attend a reading by the author at the Indian Art Museum on the Plaza. He didn't do a reading in the traditional sense. Instead, he told stories based on the book.
Here are some of the highlights from Sherman Alexie's remarks in Santa Fe.
"Farm boys carry pigs around like they are already bacon."
"I'm an Indian, but when I go to NYC, I blend in and people think I'm half of whatever they are.""We had only one Indian blanket. We needed Queer Eye for the Indigenous Guy."
When he went off-reservation to attend a private school, it was "the whitiest white place in the history of white places."
"When you're small, throw the first punch, because it might be your last chance."
"The res school was terrible. The only computer was a TRS 80 that I won in a raffle, and no one knew how to use it."
"I don't like to do appearances where I sit on panels with 'scholars,' guys in suits from Harvard and so on. I want to walk up to them [making a menacing gesture] and say, 'DECONSTRUCT THIS.'"
"At my school the white guys mixed up their knowledge of Indian names. 'Crazy Sitting Horse.' "
Here is an interview with the author from NPR.
