War Dances

by Sherman Alexie

This is probably the best short story that has been in the New Yorker yet this year. Sherman Alexie is a writer I should read more of - I enjoyed "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven", but for some reason, I've never read more of his work than that, and the occasional short piece I come across in a magazine.

In this story, the narrator, a former hydro-cephalic, loses the hearing in one ear, and is not sure if its because cockroaches have crawled into his ear, or if his hydrocephalus has returned. This leads to some interesting digressions into his father's own decline and death. The story is divided into short chapters, and in one section, takes the form of a quiz about a poem the narrator wrote.

Alexie weaves his ethnicity into the story, without it becoming the story. The funniest part is when the narrator searches the hospital for another Indian (Native, not Asian), so that he can give his recovering father a proper blanket:

"...well, I guessed if I found any Indians they might have some good blankets."
"So you want to borrow a blanket from us?" the man asked.
"Yeah."
"Because you thought Indians would just happen to have some extra blankets lying around?"
"Yeah."
"That's fucking ridiculous."
"I know."
"And it's racist."
"I know."
"You're sterotyping your own damn people."
"I know."
"But damn if we don't have a room full of Pendleton blankets. New ones. Jesus, you'd think my sister was having, like, a dozen babies."

As the story continues, it is the author's and narrator's humour that keeps the subject matter from being oppressive. Alexie, who writes very much like Thomas King, plays with words and their relationship to people, and is a master of the short fiction craft.