“"In the one hundred and eleven years since the creation of the Spokane Indian Reservation in 1881, not one person, Indian or otherwise, has ever arrived there by accident."
At the beginning of Reservation Blues, Simon, an Indian who only drives backward (?!), notices a black man with a guitar by the side of the road. Is he lost? The solitary man turns out to be blues legend Robert Johnson, who acquired his prodigious musical talent through a deal with the devil. In the course of the story the cursed guitar passes on to the geeky and sweet Indian storyteller, Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Thomas, who is friends with two other Spokane Indians on the rez, and decides to start a rock band, Coyote Springs with his buddies. The plot centers on the way the friends interact with other people, a mysterious shaman/music teacher called Big Mom, and each other. I enjoy the way Alexie develops his characters, and the funny and poignant way he shows what life is like for them. One of my favorite scenes was when Coyote Springs does an encore song, Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”
sthurner wrote this review Sunday, May 3 2009.
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