The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

In the first half of Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven I discovered a colorful, captivating and sadly realistic collection of stories. We follow Victor through his memories as a Native American growing up on a modern reservation. All the stories seem to be a mix of truth and story-telling. The present is often broken up by looking back to tell a story of the past. Each story is almost interconnected as if this book is one whole short story with chapters even though this is not the case. What makes it appear this way is the idea that Victor is the narrator and usually a character in each story. In Every Little Hurricane we are introduced to Victor as a nine year old boy who tells a story about a party in his home. Fights break which leads to more fighting. This story is told in a way that the narrator is telling the story but it seems to be coming from the memory of Victor himself. In Amusements the story is told in the first person by Victor himself. It is a story about One Indian names Dirty Joe who gets drunk at a carnival and Victor and Sadie put him on a roller coaster while he is passed out. It somehow makes you laugh and cringe simultaneously. Finally, in Fun House Victor is the narrator who is telling a story about his Aunt who one day has enough with her husband and son and spends the day floating on her back in the creek.
Most interesting to me in this collection is the character Thomas-Builds-The-Fire, he is a main character in and out of these stories. He seems to foreshadow events in Victor's life and on the reservation. In the short story The Trial of Thomas-Builds-The-Fire he is described as someone who has “a storytelling fetish accompanied by an extreme need to tell the truth (93).” He is on trial in this story for telling the truth. Often Thomas weaves stories from his minds eye and people don't like to hear them because they know that his stories hold the truth. So, instead they write him off as crazy or delusional. There was one story he told that, to me, foreshadowed Victor's character and summed up the stories in this book. In Alexie's A Drug Called Tradition Victor, Junior, and Thomas go out by the lake and take a drug in hope to see their calling or what they are supposed to do with their lives. To finally get their Indian names. Instead Thomas tells them, “Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a skeleton walking one step in front of you... these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices... That's what Indian time is. The past, the future, all wrapped up in the now (21-22).” This being the second short story in this particular collection really struck me. It is the reason, it seems, why the stories are told the way they are. The narrator's style of story telling always includes stories from the past, memories, and a question about tomorrow while happening usually in the present. I found this fascinating.

Posted by: Krista Behrends