- Hardcover: 420 pages
- Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr; First Edition edition (September 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 087113652X
- ISBN-13: 978-0871136527
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 14.7 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #515,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Native American Sherman Alexie's new novel is a departure in tone from his lyrical and funny earlier work, which include The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Reservation Blues. The main character is an Indian serial killer who incites racial tension by murdering whites in retribution for his people's history. The killer leaves clear signs of his motives by scalping his victims, and leaving feathers as gestures of Indian defiance. The killer is a conflicted creation--raised by loving white parents, but twisted by loss of his identity as an Indian. Alexie layers the story with complications and ancillary characters, from a rabid talk show host, to vengeance seeking whites, to liberals who find their patronizing espousal of Indian causes no longer so easy.
From Publishers Weekly
In a startling departure from his earlier, more lyrical fiction, Native American novelist Alexie (Reservation Blues) weighs in with a racially charged literary thriller. Seattle is rife with racial tension as the city is terrorized by a serial murderer nicknamed "Indian Killer" because the victims, all white, are scalped and their bodies topped with a pair of white owl feathers. At the center of the novel stands the mentally disintegrating John Smith, a 6'6" Native American ignorant of his tribal roots because he was adopted and raised by white parents. As the city's racial divide increases, Marie Polatkin, a combative Spokane activist and scholarship student, organizes demonstrations and distributes sandwiches and sedition to homeless Indians, while reactionary shock-jock Truck Schultz rails on the air against casinos on reservations. Three white men with masks and baseball bats (compatriots of a murdered University of Washington student) prowl the downtown area beating any Native American they find; a trio of Indians similarly beat and knife a white boy. Through it all float a number of psychological half-breeds, among them a mystery writer who's an Indian wannabe and a buffoonish white professor of Native American literature who is forced to re-evaluate his qualifications. Over the last few years, Alexie, who is Spokane/Coeur d'Alene, has built a reputation as the next great Native American writer. This novel bolsters that contention. It displays a brilliant eye for telling detail, as well as startling control, as Alexie flips points of view among a wide array of characters without ever seeming to resort to contrivance. The narrative voice can sound detached and affectless, and some readers will miss the lyricism and humor of the author's earlier work, but this novel offers abundant evidence of a most promising talent extending its range. 75,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo; author tour; rights: Nancy Stauffer.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Birds of a Feather,
By
This review is from: Indian Killer (Paperback)
As I read the first half of Indian Killer, I found that I was not that interested in the story. Maybe it was the soap-opera-like writing style, switching from person to person and setting to setting, that caused me to have a mild dislike for the novel. Never once was I able to fully experience things through the mind of one of the characters, because the next chapter would undoubtedly switch characters and settings in an attempt to portray things from another perspective. But, in the end, I think that this is one of the most endearing aspects of the novel.The novel could be said to be an exploration of how racial perceptions would play themselves out in a particularly trying circumstance. In order to show how different groups of people would react, Sherman Alexie switches from character to character. The usefulness of this approach is that one immediately sees how a person's setting, history, and ethnicity impacts his or her perception of reality. Perhaps Alexie wrote the novel to explore, in his own mind, the motivations and perceptions of different people. In fact, while Alexie does paint people in fairly broad brushstrokes, he does consistently add fine touches and nuances to give characters more depth. Depth is very important because, in real life, people are multi-faceted and can often see things from different points of view. This is especially true for people who are torn between two different worlds, i.e. American Indians who must decide between being materially successful in a white dominated world and devoting themselves to preserving their cultural heritage. This leads me to another aspect of the novel. That is that choices do not always present themselves in an objective manner. Each person perceives events differently depending on his or her background. As a result, decisions are based, not on objectivity, but on a subjective set of beliefs, experiences, observations, and morals. The only things that prevent total chaos are mutually shared traits between people. However, when there are two groups of people who do not share the same set of values, then distance, which gives rise to precariousness--a strange sort of potential energy--can often erupt into outright tumult. Therefore, while individuals view things from a unique perspective, a larger trend is set by groups of people sharing what would otherwise be subjective points of view. Alexie understands that both of these forces are at work in the world, and he shows them both in his book Indian Killer. When I came to terms with his approach, I was then able to develop an appreciation for the book, and then I could not put the book down. I wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer who stated that the book is NOT a murder mystery. While the book does draw you into suspecting different people, the end of the book takes a different turn. I urge anyone interested in modern Indian culture or who appreciates a good suspense novel to give this book a read.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Indian Killer: A killer book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Indian Killer (Paperback)
As a quater Cherokee I was interested what a current Native American piece of literature written by an actual Native American would be like. Would it be boring? Just like any other book about Native Americans? Or something different? I got my answer within the first few chapters. A racy, intrigueing, and ultimately surprsing book about a Native American's struggle with identity and closure with societies steroetypical white man. A true thriller right down to the last page.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Its Okay,
By Depp (Stockbridge, MI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Indian Killer (Paperback)
This is a good book and i would recomend it to someone with a short atention span. This book will wrap you up and you will not wantto put it down. The auther did a very good job with introduceing new people into the story. this is a mystery that will will keep you guessing untill the end. it is about the murders of white men you are being scalped and left for dead. this sends the city of seattle into an uproar acussing every person with an idian backgrond of being the murderer.
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