A Study Guide for Sherman Alexie's "Reservation Blues"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Sherman Alexie's "Reservation Blues," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535831994

Book preview

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Reservation Blues

Sherman Alexie

1995

Introduction

Sherman Alexie published Reservation Blues (1995), his first novel, after appearing on the literary scene to much acclaim several years earlier. He had published half a dozen books of verse and short fiction, including The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, about life on Washington State's Spokane reservation, where Alexie was born and raised. He then signed a deal to write a novel on the strength of a single-sentence description of an all-Indian Catholic rock-and-roll band, as noted in an interview with Tomson Highway, quoted by Daniel Grassian in Understanding Sherman Alexie. But after the pitch, Alexie changed his focus: the novel features characters from his earlier stories, forming Coyote Springs, a blues band rather than a rock-and-roll group. While the religious circumstances and conversations give Reservation Blues greater moral and philosophical weight, the novel's most singular aspect may be the fusion of cultures signified in the title, with the musical histories of Native Americans and African Americans presented as intertwined.

Although some critics—such as Gloria Bird, a fellow Spokane Indian—have questioned Alexie's presentation of Indians who seem stereotypical, such as in their apathy or drunkenness, most have effusively praised Alexie's first work of long fiction. Blythe Tellefsen explains that while Alexie himself rates the novel an aesthetic C+, Reservation Blues is widely taught and highly regarded in high schools and colleges, attesting to the extent to which Alexie has succeeded in communicating an essential version—even if not a definitive one—of life on a reservation in the modern United States.

Author Biography

Alexie was born Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr., on October 7, 1966, in Spokane, Washington, and grew up in the town of Wellpinit, Washington, on the state's Spokane Indian Reservation. His father, a Coeur d'Alene Indian, sometimes logged and drove trucks but was a heavy drinker; his mother, Lillian, who was Spokane, sewed and worked odd jobs to support the family. Alexie was born with a life-threatening ailment, hydrocephalus, a condition marked by excess fluid around the brain. He underwent surgery at six months and defied doctors' expectations by both surviving and ultimately thriving, although the first seven years of his life were marked by seizures and other conditions. Teased in school, he took refuge in educating himself, and he developed a keen sense of humor, largely as a measure of social defense.

Alexie excelled in high school and attended Gonzaga University—but he grew disillusioned by the ivory-tower ambience of the small liberal arts school and developed a drinking habit. Dropping out and finding