Novelist Sherman Alexie

The celebrated novelist, poet and screenwriter Sherman Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation, a son of the Spokane and Couer d'Alene tribes.

He made it through a rough childhood and stepped out early, with trademark bravado, in his first collection of stories "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." He wrote "Ten Little Indians," the screenplay for "Smoke Signals" and a whole lot more.

Now he's sending a troubled young half-Indian on a time-traveling American pilgrimage through Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee and future terrors, too.

This hour On Point: Sherman Alexie on his new novel, "Flight."

Quotes from the Show:

"If anything, the book is critical of men, and masculinity in general, not just Indian men." Alexie

"Native Americans and other minorities have affected the American culture as much as it has affected us. The assimilative process is a very complex one." Sherman Alexie

"Human beings don't go to war because we have to but because we want to." Sherman Alexie

"I get a little worried when people place Native Americans on a higher plane." Sherman Alexie

"I am anti-Iraq war but I wouldn't have been anti-World War II." Sherman Alexie

Guests:

Sherman Alexie, novelist, screenwriter, poet, and sometimes comedian. His new book, his 18th, is "Flight."