The Absolute Truth

BRIAN BALOGH: Let’s turn to the present now with bestselling novelist, poet, and filmmaker Sherman Alexie. In 2007, Alexie wrote a novel for young adults, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The story is based on Alexie’s childhood on the Spokane reservation in eastern Washington.

Told in the voice of a 14-year-old boy, the novel doesn’t shy away from painful subjects– bullying, poverty, violence, and alcoholism. This candor won Alexie a huge fan base among teens. It also won him a National Book Award.

But in 2014, Absolutely True Diary won the more dubious honor of being the book most frequently banned or challenged in America. I asked Alexie where he thought his novel fit in the long list of banned books throughout American history.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: I mean, when you start talking about To Kill a Mockingbird or Naked Lunch or On the Road, part of me wants to say, I don’t really fit into that because perhaps there’s actually a new category of banning that didn’t exist so much before. Where before, I think it was about saving the whole country from evil writers. The new banning is trying to pretend kids are immature.

BRIAN BALOGH: Well, you’ve been very straightforward about your work being pretty autobiographical. I’m curious to know what it’s like to have a book banned for something that actually happened to you.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: You know, I suppose at the beginning it hurt my feelings a bit. You know, the book is about being bullied. So when people ban the book, I see them as bullies. And actually it’s sort of a challenge. And it’s also I enjoy it because all’s it means is that every kid in that community, in that school is now going to want to read the book.

BRIAN BALOGH: Well, that’s true. I’m sure it help sales.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oh, you know I’ve been a national best seller for eight years now.

BRIAN BALOGH: Well, who’s the target audience of Absolutely True Diary?

SHERMAN ALEXIE: I mean, what it’s come down to is a lot of kids have been reading the book who feel trapped by their communities, who feel trapped by the expectations placed upon them– you know African American kids, Spanish-speaking kids, little farm town, little mining town. You know, I’ve got letters from kids going to really, really exclusive private school who also feel trapped by their families and their communities.

BRIAN BALOGH: Yeah, you mentioned letters. Have you gotten letters?

SHERMAN ALEXIE: Thousands of letters. Often in those letters, kids will confess to very difficult things happening to them. And it’s often very difficult to read the letters– they end up being so confessional. But the book matters to them so much that sometimes the kids feel like it’s the first time they’ve ever seen themselves in a book, recognize themselves in a book. And that powerful connection frees them to write.

BRIAN BALOGH: I want to ask you a question about history. Do you think if your work was set on an Indian reservation in 1915 it wouldn’t have gotten so much push back?

SHERMAN ALEXIE: I mean, everybody loves, you know, 19th century Indians. We’re sad and defeated in the 19th century. Having an Indian in the 21st century means we’re alive and thriving and ready to challenge you on your bull [BLEEP].

Reading a book about Native Americans opens up this entire terrible history. And I think certain parents aren’t so much afraid of the content of anyone book as they are that book might serve as a springboard to a much larger education by any particular kid.

BRIAN BALOGH: Well, fortunately, school kids don’t have iPhones or access to the web.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: But the thing is they are still being told by authority figures that something is wrong. And so really, despite the fact that there’s all this other information available all the time, when a authority figure is telling you something is right or wrong, that is developing your moral system. That’s the dangerous part about censorship.

BRIAN BALOGH: Sherman, is censorship getting better? Or is it getting worse? Or is it just a constant in our lives?

SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, you know, when you think about school bannings, library challenges, and all this stuff, really on a pure numbers basis, there aren’t that many. There were a lot of forest fires in Washington state this summer. And it just occurred to me that what we’re doing with fighting against these censorship efforts, these banning efforts is that we’re putting out spot fires. We’re putting out lightning strikes, because otherwise these things can grow into larger movements, into conflagrations of oppression.

So each of these is not necessarily dangerous on their own, except inside that particular community. But if they start building together, then it becomes something truly scary.

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BRIAN BALOGH: Sherman Alexie is the author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. It was the most frequently banned or challenged book in the US last year.