“Every Little Hurricane”
1. Pay attention to the use of meteorological language; what role does it play in this story?
2. Consider the larger implications of what the narrator tells us in the paragraph that begins: “ ‘They’re going to kill each other’” and ends with “It didn’t even deserve a name” (3)
3. Why does Victor feel his memory is more dependable than a video camera?
4. What explanation is given for the brothers’ fight (
?
“A Drug Called Tradition”
1. In what ways is this story about tradition? About the past? About the present? About the future?
2. Why do you think the boys take the drug, and what do you make of its effects?
3. Read the passage about the skeletons of the past and future. What is Alexie trying to say here? (21-2)
“Because my Father Always Said…”
1. What is ironic about the photo of Victor’s father? (24-5)
2. What comments does this story make about marriage and divorce among American Indians? (32; 34)
3. What does this story have to say about memory? (33-4)
“Crazy Horse Dreams”
1. What is it about Crazy Horse that would have made him appealing to a contemporary Indian?
“Traffic Signal”
1. What do you make of the moments of “magical realism” (like when Victor talks about having four hands)? (43)
2. Why are heroes so important on the reservation?
3. Where do we see moments of “survival humor” in this story? Why might Alexie use this technique?
4. Why is it difficult for reservation Indians to be optimistic? (49)
5. Why is “the big stuff” easier for Indians to deal with than the more everyday injustices? (49)
6. Why do Adrian and Victor immediately go into the house and bolt the door after they had just decided to go into Spokane? (52)
“This is What it Means to say Phoenix, Arizona”
1. What do you make of Thomas’s story about the two boys who want to be warriors? (63)
2. Does Thomas really fly when he jumps off the roof? And why are the other children jealous of him? (70)
3. Why does Thomas tell stories? Why does everyone else dislike his stories?
4. Why can’t Victor be friends with Thomas, even after the trip?
5. Think about the difference between what Thomas thinks about dumping the ashes, and what Victor thinks about it. What do these differences in perspective tell us about these characters?
“The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire”
1. Why does Thomas’s testimony include stories that clearly did not happen to him? What is the point behind his testimony?
2. What does the nature of this trial tell us about the condition of the contemporary Indian?
“Jesus Christ’s Half-Brother”
1. What do you make of the English translation of the baby’s Indian name: “He Who Crawls Silently Through the Grass with a Small Bow and One Bad Arrow Hunting for Enough Deer to Feed the Whole Tribe” (111)? What is the significance of his shortened name, “James” (111)?
2. Why do so many sentences/thoughts in this story run together with little punctuation in between?
3. What does Suzy mean when she says “nobody on the reservation is ever a kid and that we’re all born grown up anyway” (121)? And why, when he looks at James, does Victor “think maybe Suzy is wrong about Indian kids being born adults and that maybe James was born this way and wants to stay this way like a baby because he doesn’t want to grow up and see and do everything we all do?” (121)
4. Victor tells us that James finally speaks on Christmas of 1973, and “the only thing that matters is that he says he and I don’t have the right to die for each other and that we should be living for each other instead. He says the world hurts. He says the first thing he wanted after he was born was a shot of whiskey. He says all that and more. He tells me to get a job and to grow my braids. He says I better learn how to shoot left-handed if I’m going to keep playing basketball. He says to open a fireworks stand” (128). What is James saying here?
“Imagining the Reservation”
1. What is the significance of this equation: “Survival = Anger x Imagination. Imagination is the only weapon on the reservation” (150)?
“The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor”
1. Laughter serves many different functions in this story. Look for instances of laughter, and determine what its function is in each instance.
2. What is the significance of Simon only being able to drive in reverse, “using the rear-view mirror as his guide” (156)?
“Indian Education”
1. Why does the narrator consider Randy’s advice to “Always throw the first punch” to be “the most valuable lesson about living in the white world” (176)?
2. Why, when he kisses the white girl in eighth grade, does the narrator say: “I felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe” (176)?
3. Wally Jim kills himself, even though he isn’t an alcoholic, has a good job and a family. When asked why, everyone says: “‘Don’t know,’ we all said, but when we look in the mirror, see the history of our tribe in our eyes, taste failure in the tap water, and shake with old tears, we understand completely” (178). Why do they understand completely?
4. When he reads the newspaper headline “INDIANS LOSE AGAIN” the narrator says: “Go ahead and tell me none of this is supposed to hurt me very much” (179). What is so hurtful about the mascot and the headline for the narrator?
5. What does this story tell us about “Indian education?”
“The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”
1. What is the significance of this title, for both the story and for the collection of stories as a whole?
2. Why does the idea that “Indians can reside in the city, but they can never live there” seems “as close to the truth as any of us [Indians] can get” (187)?
“Witnesses, Secret and Not”
1. In what ways in this story similar to “The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire”?
2. What does the narrator mean when he says: “Why is it that car accidents take so long to happen? And they seem to get slower as you grow older? I’d been in one accident or another every year of my life” (213)? And later, when he asks: “I’m always asking myself if a near-accident is an accident, if standing right next to a disaster makes you part of the disaster or just a neighbor” (215). What larger significance, beyond the literal, do these passages share?
3. After giving Jimmy some money, which they know he will use to get drunk, the narrator tells us: “WE just drove off then and left Jimmy to make his own decisions. That’s how it is. One Indian doesn’t tell another what to do. We just watch things happen and then make comments. It’s all about reaction as opposed to action” (216). What does he mean by this? How is much of this book, its stories and characters, is “about reaction as opposed to action,” and what is Alexie saying about this?
4. What does this story have to say about witnesses? In what way(s) is this entire collection about being a witness?