Life on the Reservation
The opening story in the collection is not even halfway through its second paragraph when suddenly a theme that runs through all the stories in collect is stated by the first-person narrator of “Burn.” He asserts that “everything we needed—except pot—was on the rez. Well, except Best Buy or Bed Bath & Beyond.” And, indeed, as the stories play out, both ends of this theme are manifested. On the one hand, the presentation of reservation life is one that rejects what is a common belief among most of American society that life for Native Americans living in this peculiarly American example of segregated society is distinctly lacking in the fundament experiences of living in America is supposedly all about. This means that by definition life on the reservation is inherently unfulfilling as opposed to a life lived off the reservation. The stories working together present a portrait of a life that may well leave many unfulfilled, but not because of the lack of interest on the part of big business to make the reservations identical to every city in America.
Darkness
Many of the stories are linked by the common thematic threads of drug abuse—which requires temporarily leaving the reservation, of course, since pot, remember, is not on the rez. Actually, drugs and alcohol and addiction and depression, and many other assorted pursuits which appeal to the darker side of human nature are in abundant supply on the reservation. As the story “In a Field of Stray Caterpillars” reveals, however, what is not in great abundance on the reservation is the best mental health care to be found within America’s borders, much less a system equitable to what is offered by so many countries beyond America’s borders.
Inherited Alienation
While this book is constructed of standalone short stories that exist independently of the others, they are connected through the commonality of sharing the same protagonist and the friends and family in his orbit. His relationship with his mother is particularly important, but just as the stories are connected by shared characters, so are the lives of the characters connected by shared history. Generations of family members call these Native American reservations home and as with any insular community, this environment produces a sense of alienation from outside society that fosters reiterations of mistakes and unwise choices. As the lyrics in a Gang of Four songs assert on the subject of generational alienation, “History is the reason I’m washed up.” These stories continually demonstrate that life on the reservation is part one in which the odds begin stacking up for residents literally from the moment of birth. The final story of the collection, “The Names Means Thunder” is appropriately the climax and culmination of the exploration of this particular theme.
