![]() ![]() “A Drug Called Tradition” introduces three close friends on the Spokane Reservation: Victor Joseph, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, and Junior Polatkin. He wakes to a vicious fight between his uncles at his parents’ New Year’s Eve party. ![]() In the first short story, “Every Little Hurricane,” a hurricane startles nine-year-old Victor from his sleep on the Spokane Reservation. Though Alexie offers few happy endings to his plots, preferring open ones, he keeps the possibility of triumph viable.Ĭontent Warning: This study guide references racism and racial stereotypes, genocide, alcohol addiction, violence, incarceration, sexual harassment, and terminal illness. Above all, the stories emphasize the importance of seizing a definable personal and cultural selfhood, whether through traditional tribal methods or not. They also challenge stereotypes through their blending of pop culture and politics, self-deprecating humor and tradition, and aspiration and generational trauma. The storylines spotlight both internal and external conflict as viewed through the lens of ethnicity, cultural deprivation, and tribal history. ![]() The work operates as a bildungsroman in progress, with the characters repeatedly not growing into their identities as Indigenous men. Though the collection lacks a linear structure, the stories are bound together through three reappearing protagonists: Victor Joseph, Junior Polatkin, and Thomas Builds-the-Fire. ![]()
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