Sherman Alexie Story: What You Pawn I Will Redeem

MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2003

"One day you have a home and the next you don�t, but I�m not going to tell you my particular reasons for being homeless, because it�s my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks.

I�m a Spokane Indian boy, an Interior Salish, and my people have lived within a hundred-mile radius of Spokane, Washington, for at least ten thousand years. I grew up in Spokane, moved to Seattle twenty-three years ago for college, flunked out after two semesters, worked various blue- and bluer-collar jobs, married two or three times, fathered two or three kids, and then went crazy. Of course, crazy is not the official definition of my mental problem, but I don�t think asocial disorder fits it, either, because that makes me sound like I�m a serial killer or something. I�ve never hurt another human being, or, at least, not physically. I�ve broken a few hearts in my time, but we�ve all done that, so I�m nothing special in that regard. I�m a boring heartbreaker, too. I never dated or married more than one woman at a time. I didn�t break hearts into pieces overnight. I broke them slowly and carefully. And I didn�t set any land-speed records running out the door. Piece by piece, I disappeared. I�ve been disappearing ever since."

Get the Story:
Sherman Alexie: What You Pawn I Will Redeem (The New Yorker March 21, 2003 Issue)
Q&A: Reedemers with Sherman Alexie (The New Yorker March 21, 2003 Issue)

Relevant Links:
Sherman Alexie - http://www.fallsapart.com