The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian concerns Arnold Spirit, Jr. He is a stammering hydrocephaloid living on an Eastern Washington Indian reservation where he endures a daily round of abuse and bullying. This abuse changes when he goes to Reardon High, the nearest “white” high school. His sister is agoraphobic, his parents are alcoholic, and his best friend’s father is abusive to Rowdy, born the same day into the same life. Personally I see this book as Diary of a Wimpy Kid on the Rez. The slick marketing and packaging of the book takes the heart out of it for me. I had already begun reading it when I realized that the cartoons and artwork were not Alexie’s; though he claims to be a cartoonist devoted to drawing. In this section, Junior misses Rowdy coming over to eat pumpkin pie, so he draws a picture of the two of them together and delivers it to Rowdy's house. The juxtaposition of an imaginary story with an even more imaginary image breaks the narration for me. The work, as a whole package, is being marketed to the “Young Adult” demographic. After it won a deserving National Book Award the cover, the package, and the hype changed. The 2nd release of the book ran out of copies. It has eclipsed its own status as a book, and become a sacred totem for the publishing industry, following other works that are marketed in the same YA/graphic novel way. Does popularity mean more than literary merit in the way something trends on the Internet? Don’t get me wrong - Alexie writes amazing prose. His description of Arnold’s tryout for the Reardon basketball team far exceeds my expectation for Coleridge’s “suspension of disbelief”, but it’s being touted like Shakespeare and toted like increasingly vulgar and profane DC comics. The Absolutely True Diary has too much profanity to outweigh the serious writing. The discussion of masturbation in the beginning chapters is just unnecessary alongside themes encompassing racism, alcoholism and violence. “Naked women + right hand = happy happy joy joy” is not literature and puts off anyone with taste. Oscar the dog is shot by his father and becomes a symbol for the senseless destruction that occurs on the reservation, seen in the deaths of Arnold's grandmother, his friend Eugene, and his sister Mary and her husband. The dog’s death is the beginning of an allegory spanning the whole book, but it is bogged down by the claim that ideas in books, films and artwork should give me an erection (Alexie, 2004). That is the definition of pornography. The easy response for Alexie’s argument in the book is hope and perseverance in the face of adversity. There are thousands of pages on the internet extolling his virtues in exposing the reality-show side of the rez, but the book reaffirms many stereotypes of American Indians. All Indians are alcoholic (Alexie,2004). Arnold, as a rez indian, has to leave his culture behind and go to a white school or he will live life as a poor alcoholic. American Indians deal with their problems by fighting while white kids are unwilling to result to violence. Every adult American Indian character in the book is a drunk. Plenty of literary works have been called to task for these kinds of stereotyping. This work is an example of roman a clef - good or bad, depending on your definition. Excellent if it is defined as a way to write about controversial topics, or the opportunity to portray personal experiences without exposing the author as the subject. It is a poor example as the tale turns the way the author would like it to have gone; Arnold gets the most popular girl in school, befriends the star basketball player, and gets on the varsity team as a freshman. A little too formulaic.