Reservation Blues (Luke Dilisio)

Reservation Blues written by the Native American author Sherman Alexie, is a 306 page book.

Sherman Alexie is very well known for writing other books that include knowledge of the Indian heritage. Other books written by Sherman Alexie include Indian Killer, The Toughest Indian in the World, and Ten Little Indians. I found this story to be very interesting because it included magical realism and was also pretty funny in the way it was written.

Reservation Blues is a great story about a man named Robert Johnson who allegedly sells his soul to the devil to gain his extraordinary talent with the guitar. Robert Johnson arrives at a Spokane Indian reservation where he meets misfit Thomas Builds-the-fire. Thomas leads Robert to a woman that lives in the clouds and who Robert has been dreaming about. This woman is called Big Mom and is no regular lady. Big Mom is reported by the Indian folk to be hundreds of years old and very wise. It’s also rumored that Big Mom even tought Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. It is Robert Johnson’s idea that only Big Mom can undo the curse he made with the devil all those years ago. At the peak of Wellpoint Mountain where Big Mom resides, Robert thanks Thomas for his help and leaves Thomas his guitar. Thomas Builds-the-fire soon finds out that this is no ordinary guitar and forms his own blues band, taking the reader on an exciting journey of the bands rise to fame. I really liked this book because the genre of the story caught my attention right away and interested me the whole time I was reading it. The genre of the story was Magical realism. Magical realism is an artistic genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or normal setting. In this case, the magical realism had to do with a guitarist making a deal with the devil and having to undo his curse, in turn giving away his magical guitar to an old Spokane Indian in a normal world. I have always been drawn to science fiction type books, but I really liked Reservation Blues because it incorporated a pinch of that style to an average world. Another reason why I liked this book was because of its subtle humor. In the story as Thomas Builds-the-fire begins to form his blues band, he comes across two other misfit natives that want to join his band. The names of these two women are Checkers and Chess. I found this to be funny because it was a small play on names. I thought this was funny for another reason because Sherman Alexie had previously been using common names in the story such as Robert, Thomas, and Victor.Although Reservation Blues is a somewhat lengthy book, once you get wrapped up into the story you will have a great time reading it and you’ll be done reading before you know it. I enthusiastically advise anyone interested in this book to read it because I know that they will have as much fun as I did when I read it. However, if you’re not entirely sold on reading this book, next time you see it on a shelf look for the “Winner of the American book award and Murray Morgan Prize” label. I’m sure that might fix any doubts you may have about this book.