ok everyone I just read the most amazing book! I devoured it in a day and a half.
The novel is called Flight, and it’s by Sherman Alexie, one of my favourite writers. 15-year-old Zits, a Indian kid stuck in a cycle of foster homes, jail, and the streets, is at the brink and ready to do something really stupid with his anger. I mean really stupid. But suddenly he is catapulted through time to inhabit the different bodies of people involved in critical moments in American Indian history. He travels through the body of an FBI agent in the civil rights era, to the body of an Indian boy at the battle of Little Bighorn, to the body of a white Indian hunter in the 19th century, to the body of a flight instructor in the 9/11 era…etc, etc. In all the moments he inhabits, he is forced to act, make decisions, and figure out where his allegiances and angers lie.
And by the way, it is FUNNY. Zits may be a misguided jerk at times, but he has a keen sense of irony about other people’s charity and privilege. The dialogue is full of wisecracks. Some people would call it Native humour. I just call it hilarious.
Sherman Alexie is also the author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which is one of my very favourite books.
Check it out! Don’t you love it when other people read the same awesome books as you at the same time and you can jump up and down, sharing every bit of brilliance?!? I need that!
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one comment
Thanks for the recommendation! This book sounds amazing. A few weeks ago I read an excerpt from The Lone Ranger...and I really liked it. I will try and get my hands on this book soon and hopefully join you in the jumping up and down...
Posted by Thea
July 25, 2007, 6:29 PM
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