"Whenever I read locally, fans will often wait outside the bookstore to greet me, to have a few minutes of private time, to give me gifts or tell me secrets or make offers or demand favors. It’s the price to be paid for a public life. I accept it. I’m always polite, but one has to keep moving, keep walking, don’t pause, don’t stop, or you’ll never break free.
However, I was surprised to find that nobody was waiting for me outside the bookstore. No fans. No matter how big my career gets, I also assume it’s going to end the next minute, next hour, next day, next week. Who knew that narcissism and self-pity are such close cousins?
Hurt, confused, I wondered if my fans had deserted me. I walked into the store, saw a few employees — familiar faces — standing behind the registers, and I waved. “The reading is downstairs,” one of them said. What a strange thing for her to say to me. Of course I know the reading is downstairs; I’ve read here 30 times. Maybe she’s just being funny.
So I walked down those gorgeous wooden stairs into the basement of Elliott Bay Book Company and I heard a familiar voice. It’s not that I’ve heard this particular voice before. But I recognize the rhythms, syntax and vocabulary. That’s a reservation Indian man talking. A rez boy. Am I that late? Has the crowd decided to read for me until I arrive to read for myself? Is this Indian guy exaggerating his Indian accent as he reads one of my stories or poems?
I feel honored by it. I wonder if I’ll get a standing ovation when I step into the room. But wait, that guy is reading a new poem of mine. A poem about Jimi Hendrix. How can he be reading that poem? Nobody has that poem. That poem is only in my computer and in the folder of poems I’m holding in my arms. Nobody has seen that poem except me. How did this guy get my poem? Is he some weird computer hacker/poem stealer? Jesus, what’s going on?"
Get the Story:Sherman Alexie: Stealing Sherman Alexie (LA Weekly 3/13) Another Article:
Matthew Fleischer: Fake Memoirist Channels Sherman Alexie (LA Weekly 3/13) Related Stories:
Faking It: Why do writers pretend to be Indians? (3/10)
Book recalled after 'Native' author exposed as fraud (3/4)
