This man, Sherman Alexie, sexually abuses women serially and I will never support his work.

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This is a fascinating tale that uses magical realism, humor, pop culture, historical figures to relate what present day life on an Indian Reservation is like in the U.S. I learned a plot, I laughed a lot, I cried. Educational, engrossing, well-written. I strongly recommend it.

How can you not love a book about an all-indian blues band, groupies named Betty and Veronica and Robert Johnson? It sounds gimmicky and in the hands of another writer could be stomach-churningly bad.

Big Mom is one of my favorite characters. I love Sherman's female characters, they are not the typical weak, bland victims that native women tend to be in popular culture. The blending of the old and the new, frybread, the power of dreams and song and just funny stuff in the midst of despair are what I remember most. Some of the symbolism is really overt--Phil Sheridan of Cavalry Records-- for instance.

“They dreamed of fishing salmon but woke up as adults to shop at the Trading Post and stand in line for U.S.D.A. commodity food instead. They savagely opened cans of commodities and wept over the rancid meat.”

I was first introduced to these characters when I saw the movie Smoke Signals, which was originally a book (that I didn’t read). I liked the movie, in part because I think the actor Adam Beach is yummy. In this book, Thomas is given an enchanted guitar and forms a band with Victor and Junior. The writing is beautiful, and the subject—life on the Spokane Indian reservation—can be sad owing to the alcoholism and poverty.

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This is definitely an achingly, funny and bittersweet novel continuing the adventures of Thomas Builds a Fire, Victor Joseph and Junior Polatkin, the protagonists of Alexie’s previous collection, The Lone Ranger, Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Only this time, these three misfits magically become rock musicians by the random appearance of blues singer Robert Johnson’s guitar. The trio form a band, later including sisters Checkers and Chess Warmwater; and their sad, desperately and human story unfolds as a tale of trying to figure out what it means in going beyond skin-deep stereotypes.

Charming, troubling and eye-opening. I want to read everything Sherman Alexie has written.

There's magic in this book. Not the shimmering fairy dust of Disney, not the creeping shadows of Poe, but a magic of a different sort. An older magic, and a sadder one, probably because it's all true.

I picked up Reservation Blues from the library because it was being displayed as a prominent book in Banned Book week. I'd read and listened to (even published at GBF) Sherman Alexie's work, but had never heard of this one. When I read the premise, that of famous blues musician Robert Johnson (who supposedly sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads to become the best guitar player ever), wandering on to a Spokane reservation and giving Thomas Builds-the-Fire his guitar, I was hooked.

Rock 'n roll. Pacific Northwest. An honest, heartbreaking look at life on a reservation. I loved this book. One of my favorite reads this year. The ending depressed the hell out of me while also making me smile.

This is my favorite of Alexie's works that I've read. There is a great deal of figurative images and magical realism, so anyone new to Alexie has to stick with it. The deep look at each character keeps the reader interested and invested. An extremely good read tht I finished within 6 hours. Great read for those interested in Catholic/Christian imagery.

Reservation Blues, written by Spokane Indian author Sherman Alexie, was short-listed for the Dublin literary award way back in 1997. As such, it can feel a little dated in some of its cultural references.

But the writing is certainly good, very good, lively and forthright, full of Indian cultural references, mixed with a little magic realism, sometimes bordering on the surreal. Beneath the humour and the satire, there is a determined political commentary about the plight of the Indian tribes of America, displaced from traditional lands by white settlers, slaughtered to an extent approximating genocide, and now forced to live on government reservations, enduring a massive loss of cultural identity and esteem.

But the book is mainly about the music, the Indian band that calls themselves Coyote Springs, led by lead singer and bass player Thomas Builds-the-Fire. He is initially partnered with a couple of local misfits, Victor, who plays a lead guitar once owned by Blues legend Robert Johnson, and Junior, on the drums. They are later joined by sisters Chess and Checkers Warm Water, who contribute back up vocals.

The formation of the band was inspired by the arrival on the reservation one day of Robert Johnson, with his guitar, who seems to be in search of some kind of spiritual enlightenment.

Johnson gives his guitar to Thomas (who passes it on to Victor), and then goes to stay with Big Mom, whose house is on the only hill in the reservation. Big Mom, who seems to be very old, is seen to be the font of wisdom and the keeper of Spokane cultural history.

The development of the band, Coyote Springs, vacillates between being loved and hated, tolerated and despised, enduring a series of successes and failures, until its eventual demise. They have a crack at the mainstream, off the reservation in the Big Smoke, but the vagaries of the music industry conspires against them ever achieving any real stardom or commercial success.

There are a number of sub-plots which add to the narrative diversity and take the story beyond just making and playing music. One involves a developing romance between Checkers warm Water and the local priest, Father Arnold.

This is no literary masterpiece, but I enjoyed it for the fine writing, the lively characters and excellent plot development. The heady mix of music, politics, indigenous culture and irreverent humour was a fine recipe for an entertaining novel.

I tried to pass this fictional novel off as a memoir for a book report in my Creative Non-fiction Writing class in college. It was based on real events from the author's life, but there were spirits and such, so the prof didn't buy it. Anyway, decent little book, with some good-old sardonic Injun humor (e.g., "Our race is completely fucked, but we're going down laughing, so screw you.")

Thomas-Builds-a-Fire is one of the greatest characters in 20th century literature. Period.

What a fantastic novel. Stronger than Alexie’s debut collection, RESERVATION BLUES explores similar territory with an even greater scope as he takes his compelling, hilarious, and tragic characters (Thomas-Builds-a-Fire, Victor, and Junior) off of the reservation while also bringing outsiders onto it. The result is a convincing portrayal of the complex status his characters find themselves in: eroded connections to family (often fathers), white culture’s simultaneous fetishizing and dismissing of Native American culture, the fine line between advancing the status of the nation and causing problems, as well as some great, subtle, connections linking the experience of Africans and Native Americans.

Overall, this novel should be the one people suggest when recommending Alexie to those who prefer novels (THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO FISTFIGHT IN HEAVEN is a great book but might not be as cohesive for people who already bristle at short stories, even though there’s plenty of character overlap).

Although we first meet Robert Johnson, of sold-his-soul-to-the-devil-at-the-crossroads-to-play-guitar fame, this novel is about a group of Indians in Washington State forming a rock and roll band called Coyote Springs. Will they make it big off the reservation or will they crash? Alexie is very funny in a manic sort of way, and the novel is full of musical references, but like many books by Native American authors, great despair and hopelessness underlies it all.