Reservation blues, written by Sherman Alexie, is a book about adventure revolving around Spokane Indians. Throughout the book, the characters face many hardships, which would seem to be a recurring theme in the book.
Sherman Alexie, a short story author, screenwriter, and poet, is a Native American who grew up on the Spokane reservation, which also happens to be where the story took place. The book could be based off of his experiences growing up on the reservation. He moved off of the reservation and got a college education.
The book revolves around a small group of Indians. The main characters; Thomas Builds-The-Fire, Victor Joseph, and Junior Polatkin form a band named ‘Coyote Springs”. The other Indians on the reservation are against them playing music.
The book took place in a very vague period of time, and there are several historical figures in the book, such as Robert Johnson, who was a famous blues musician. There are also mythical characters like Big Mom, who is an Indian fable.
This book seems to relate to the fact that indian’s lives are full of hardships. The characters face many situations where they go through difficulties. Their lives seem very harsh in the book, and no matter what they seem to do, they cannot escape from their hardship. One of the main characters, Junior Polatkin, had very tragic experiences throughout the book. He was better off at the beginning of the story.
This interesting book did a good job on describing the tragic lives of Indians, but not as good of a job when it came to describing the music, which was a main part of the plot.