Sherman Alexie: from writer to pop phenomenon

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Sherman Alexie was happier talking about his guilty appreciation of "Rocky 3" — Hulk Hogan rocked! — and complaining about "Daredevil" — it should have been an indie film made for $65 million less — than discussing why many Native Americans feel he's betrayed them.

Sherman Alexie will be a featured speaker at the Maui Writers Conference. Photo courtesy Sherman Alexie

More important, though, Alexie's stories offer snapshots of the realities of modern Native American life that are often as unflinching and unflattering as they are barrier-breaking and revelatory.

In the 36-year-old writer's stories, "Indians" (Alexie prefers that word to the more PC "Native Americans," which he has called a guilty liberal expression) are not the relentlessly spiritual and eternally wise mystics of popular films and literature, whose every life problem can be traced back to some vicious wrong committed by the white man. They are burned-out writers, serial killers, self-conscious college students, homosexual boxers, intellectual feminists and white-collar workers who criss-cross America with problems largely of their own personal design. They make bad jokes, have sex, kill, weep, drive too fast and worry about disappointing family.

In other words, they're just like the rest of us.

As his literary star has risen — The New Yorker name-checked him in 1999 as one of the top writers for the 21st century — debate has grown over the impact of Alexie's work within his own culture. From the start, Native Americans have exalted his writing as ground-breaking — and denounced it as misrepresentative. To Alexie's dismay, the issue of Native Americans critical of his work is still raised by interviewer after interviewer, in most articles written about the writer.

In a July interview promoting Alexie's latest collection of stories, "Ten Little Indians," Publishers Weekly asked the writer about how he responded to Native Americans who insisted he should be promoting the culture.

"Well, depending on my mood, either "(expletive)" or "Please (expletive)," he replied. "(But) I usually tell this story. ... A few years ago, at my oldest son's birthday party ... I looked round the room and I realized there were two gay couples, two lesbian couples, seven countries, 12 states, senior citizens — all hues and shades — and I thought, 'Well, this is my life,' and my art wasn't representing that. My urban, diverse life wasn't reflecting that. And certainly my politics were not reflecting that. I think my politics are just catching up with my life."

When I asked Alexie a question about his current take on the love/hate relationship that Native Americans have with his work, he laughed it off, but was clearly annoyed.

"I'm getting so bored of it."

Bored of?

"The question. (More chuckling.) It's irrelevant. I think I'm going to issue a moratorium on answering it until John Updike answers the same question. ... When I give readings, my mom, my siblings and my dad before he passed away are all in the third row. And they like it. And they love what I do. And who gives a ... about everybody else out there? Who gives a ... about anybody anywhere? I write what I write. And when people come to it, I'm happy. But that's not why I write."

It was probably just as well that Alexie preferred dissecting pop, rather than reservation, culture during our chat. In many ways, he made the transition several years ago from a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian writer concerned with the truths of Native American culture to bona fide pop culture phenomenon. His stories percolate with pointed references to, among other things, Dr. Phil, Freddy Fender, "Go, Dog, Go!" and ESPN2's fascination with extreme sports.

Alexie grew up and was schooled on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington state, but switched to an outside high school when he found his mother's signature scrawled in one of his textbooks. His first book of poetry was published a year after his graduation from Washington State University, and other critically lauded short story collections and novels followed.

In 1997, he agreed to do a screenplay based on the "Fistfight in Heaven" story, "This Is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona," for New York University film school student director Chris Eyre. Released as "Smoke Signals," the film eventually scored Audience and Filmmakers Trophy awards at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Picked up for distribution by Miramax, it wound up grossing $7 million.

Alexie went on to win a 1999 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and more attention from Hollywood and college-educated white women (by his own admission, the latter are the biggest fans of his literary works) than he claims ever to have wanted. One of his lucrative side careers these days is as an anonymous script doctor for wayward would-be blockbusters.

When we spoke, Alexie was working on his third original screenplay, for the short story "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" from "Ten Little Indians." His intention was to write, direct and finance the film on his own.

He also admitted that it would be fine with him if he never worked on another Hollywood film again. Asked why, Alexie proved characteristically cocky.

"Well, part of it is simply every word I write will get published," Alexie said, laughing. "By now I could publish my grocery list. I'm in complete control. It's my world. But with screenplays and moviemaking, it's out of my control. And frankly, movie audiences aren't as demanding.

"I like trying to appeal to snobby pretentious people. I like to challenge people. And movie audiences don't want to be challenged."

So while still on the subject of the unchallenged, our discussion moved on to summer cinema and film in general — subjects close to Alexie's pop culture lovin' heart.

What was the biggest disappointment at the movies this summer?

" 'Daredevil.' ... I own every 'Daredevil' (comic) every printed. The thing is, I saw one of the original drafts of the screenplay, and something happened. ... I don't think it was the fault of the filmmakers as much as in (the current filmmaking) environment the best form of 'Daredevil' could not be made. Honestly, 'Daredevil' needed to be ... made for $10 million, independently. Jim Jarmusch should have made it."

With Tom Waits as Daredevil.

(Laughs.) "Steve Buscemi! No, Tim Roth! Tim Roth as Daredevil ... written and directed by Jim Jarmusch."

Of all the films in the "Rocky" oeuvre, why is "Rocky 3" listed on your Web site as a guilty favorite?

(Laughs hard.) "I don't know. It's such a cartoon. I just love the ... out of seeing Sylvester Stallone putting a sleeper hold on Hulk Hogan."