The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

1. Plot Overview
Arnold Spirit Jr. (“Junior”) tells about his early life on the Spokane Indian reservation. How
doctors predicted he would die from complications of hydrocephalus, his being born with
excess spinal fluid on the brain. But, of course, Junior survived. The early condition, however,
left Junior with a lisp and stutter. He had too many teeth and had to have some removed,
and he is far-sighted in one eye and near-sighted in the other. Worst of all, as a small child he
had seizures. Even today, other Indians on the reservation or, as Junior calls it, the “rez,”
bully him and call him names like “hydrohead.” Junior’s best friend, Rowdy, often promises
to protect him, but Rowdy’s own violent tendencies sometimes prevent him from being all
that helpful. Junior’s parents are alcoholics and his sister, Mary, spends all her time in the
family basement. Junior loves drawing cartoons, and many of his drawings are included in
the book. Rowdy is extremely supportive of Junior’s art, and Junior thinks this proves his and
Rowdy’s friendship.

In the summer before their freshman year of high school, Rowdy convinces Junior to go with
him to the Spokane powwow. Junior is fourteen. Rowdy promises to protect Junior from any
bullies, but, soon after they arrive, Rowdy trips into a van, embarrassing himself. Rowdy
takes out his anger by attacking the van with a shovel, but the vandalism scares Junior.
Junior runs away into a set of mean, drunk, thirty-year-old triplets. They push him around and
beat him up. Later, to make up for having let Junior down, Rowdy sneaks into the triplets’
camp at night and cuts off their long braids, emasculating them. Junior sees it as more proof
that Rowdy does the best he can. Soon thereafter, Junior and Rowdy begin their first year at
Wellpinit High. Junior is excited to get started and is especially looking forward to his
geometry class. But his geometry teacher, Mr. P, gives Junior a textbook that Junior sees
was signed by his mother, Agnes Adams, thirty years previously. He throws the textbook in a
fit of rage. It hits Mr. P in the face, breaking his nose.

After the textbook incident, Junior is suspended from school. Much to Junior’s surprise, Mr.
P comes to Junior’s house to apologize to Junior. Mr. P tells Junior that there is no hope on
the reservation, and that the best thing Junior can do for himself is to get off the reservation
as quickly as possible. Mr. P says that Junior is smart, but that Mary was even smarter and
more talented than Junior until the reservation crushed her spirit. Junior takes Mr. P advice,
and, when his parents come home, he tells them he’s decided to go to school in the all-white
town of Reardan, some twenty-two miles from home. Junior’s parents agree, and he starts
school the next day. Because his family is very poor, sometimes without any money for gas,
Junior often has difficulty getting to Reardan. He hitchhikes or gets rides from people like his
dad’s friend, Eugene. On his first day, Junior meets his future girlfriend, Penelope. A few days
later, the toughest jock, Roger, insults Junior with a racist joke, and Junior punches him in
the face. Junior is surprised to find that his action earns him Roger’s respect. Then, Junior’s
future friend, Gordy, sticks up for Junior in class.

On the reservation, however, Rowdy and the other Indians feel betrayed. Most react by
ignoring Junior, but some are angrier than that. To impress Penelope, Junior decides to raise
money for the homeless while trick-or-treating. But, after Junior starts going door-to-door,
word gets around that he is carrying money. Junior gets jumped by three boys in masks.
Junior fears that Rowdy is one of them. Penelope finds out and donates money in both her
and Junior’s names. Then, around Thanksgiving, Mary gets married to a Montana poker
player she meets at the Spokane casino, and she moves with him to Montana without saying
goodbye to her family. Junior wonders if Mary is competing with him because he managed to
get off the reservation. Junior hears from Mary occasionally thereafter by email and letter. In
her messages, Mary says she is struggling to find a job, but she remains optimistic.

Later that fall, Junior tries out for the Reardan basketball team and has to play one-on-one
against Roger, who is 6’6” and can dunk. It’s a tough match up, but Junior holds his own and
is rewarded with a spot on the varsity team. Junior’s team plays an early game against
Wellpinit on the reservation where the entire crowd turns its back on Junior when his team
enters the gym. While Junior is checking into the game for the first time, a fan throws a
quarter at him, hitting him in the head. Junior asks Eugene, an EMT, to stich him up in the
locker room, but, just after he checks back into the game, Rowdy fouls Junior so badly he
gives Junior a concussion. Reardan loses badly, but, weeks later, in the teams’ next match up
at Reardan, Junior’s strong defense leads Reardan to decisive victory. Wellpinit’s season is
ruined, and Reardan loses, later, early in the state playoffs.

Then the tragedies begin. Junior’s grandmother, whom Junior admires for her tolerance and
generosity, is struck and killed by a drunk driver as she is walking home from a powwow. A
white billionaire named Ted makes a pompous speech at her well-attended funeral, and the
Indians laugh him off the reservation. Then, Eugene’s friend, Bobby, shoots Eugene in the
face over the last sip of a bottle of wine. Later, just when Junior thinks things can’t get any
worse, the school guidance counselor calls him into the hall to tell him that Mary has died.
Junior’s dad picks him up from school and tells him that Mary and her husband’s trailer
caught on fire while the two were passed out from excess drinking. Rowdy blames Junior for
Mary’s death, but Junior somehow manages to finish the school year and get a decent report
card. He and his family begin to heal, and he promises his Mom that he will never drink. That
summer, Rowdy comes to Junior’s house to see if Junior will hang out. The book ends with
the two playing a game of one-on-one in the summer heat.

2. Characters Analysis
A. Arnold Spirit Jr. (Junior)
Junior is the unreliable narrator of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Unlike
many unreliable narrators, however, Junior is never unreliable as the result of maliciousness
or intentional dishonesty. Rather, the gap between Junior’s version of events and what
Alexie suggests really happens, is the result of Junior’s youthful naiveté or an emotional
shock. Junior thinks he and Rowdy will be friends forever, for example, that they are closer
than family. But shortly after Junior describes their inseparable bond, Rowdy rejects Junior’s
friendship for the rest of the novel. Junior still has things to learn about family and
friendship. Many of the novel’s episodes are stories of Junior waking up to one of his biases
or blind spots. Such is the case when Rowdy and Gordy show Junior that his infatuation with
Penelope’s whiteness is only a subtle variation of the racism and prejudice to which bigoted
white people treat him and other Indians every day. Still, for the most part, Junior is sincere,
compassionate, resilient, and persistent. When he recognizes them, he is honest about his
faults with himself and readers.

Throughout the novel, Junior struggles with a sense of double-consciousness or internal

contradiction. After his decision to attend Reardan, Junior feels he is not fully Indian when he
is on the Spokane Reservation. Yet, when he is at Reardan, Junior is all too aware that he is
not white. This is reflected in many of Junior’s cartoons, which show the stark divide
between life on and off the reservation. Junior struggles to find acceptance in both
communities, and his positive character traits, especially his persistence, eventually secure
him friends among the white kids: Penelope, Gordy, Roger and others, at the Reardan high
school. One of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’s main ironies is that Junior
finds it harder to find acceptance from Rowdy and the other members of his own tribe, the
tribe he was born into, than he does in the white world. As the novel progresses, Junior’s
internal contradictions are never really resolved. Instead, after great losses and in light of
passing time, they fade in significance.

B. Rowdy
Rowdy, at least according to Junior, is Junior’s best friend. But Rowdy seldom expresses his
emotions in words, and, whenever Junior tries to tell Rowdy how much he means to him,
Rowdy usually responds with a homophobic slur. Rowdy often resorts to fistfights and
vandalism over conversation. And Rowdy’s home life - the fact that his father is emotionally
and physically abusive - is no secret on the reservation. Junior implies that the difficulty
Rowdy has expressing his emotions stems from his father’s abusive behavior. When Junior
decides to leave the Wellpinit high school and head for Reardan, Rowdy takes Junior’s
decision as a personal affront. He sees Junior as a traitor and, though Junior invites Rowdy to
join him at Reardan, Rowdy reacts to being abandoned by renouncing Junior’s friendship.
Despite his anger issues, Rowdy has a good (though juvenile) sense of humor. He is honest
with Junior, is supportive of Junior’s cartooning, and gives Junior tough love whenever
Junior comes to him for relationship advice. When Junior asks him to, Rowdy protects
Junior’s secrets.

C. Mary Spirit (Junior’s Sister)

According to Mr. P, Mary is the only student at Wellpinit who was smarter and showed more
promise than Junior. For Junior, Mr. P’s revelation comes as a shock because Mary has spent
the years since graduating from high school sleeping the day away in the family basement.
Mary wanted to be a romance novelist—another fact Junior learns from Mr. P—but she does
little to work toward that goal. Junior believes that Mary got up one day and married the
Montana Indian she met at the casino because she felt pressured to do more with her life as
a result of his decision to leave the reservation. But Junior never brings himself to say that
Mary’s decision to leave for Montana was rushed and reckless where his decision to study in
Reardan was steady and responsible. In Mary’s messages to Junior—her email and letter—
Mary’s unflagging optimism masks the growing difficulty and despair of her jobless new life
in a trailer far from home. Mary’s early death shows how damning the despair of life on
Indian reservations can be even for extremely talented and intelligent people.
D. Gordy
Gordy is Junior’s best friend at Reardan and, according to Junior, the smartest kid in the
school. Gordy may be smart, but he’s also a bit of a nerd. He insists that books give him, and
should give Junior “a metaphysical boner,” and he debates the merits of different computer
models with Junior even though, to Junior, they’re all essentially the same. Gordy’s
intellectual principles sometimes make him as socially inept as Rowdy. When Junior thanks
Gordy for sticking up for him in class, for example, Gordy insists that he wasn’t sticking up for
Junior at all, but for science. Likewise, Gordy’s commitment to research means he often
shows Junior the same tough love as Rowdy. Gordy tells Junior essentially the same thing as
Rowdy, that Junior’s infatuation with Penelope’s whiteness makes him a “racist asshole.”
Junior loves reading and learning long before he meets Gordy, but Gordy shows Junior just
how important and fulfilling intellectual pursuits can be—that is a good thing to be a little
weird.

3. Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

A. Individual Ambitions and Communal Obligations

Junior has great personal ambition. He wants to become a famous cartoonist and to make
money. Becoming rich and famous, Junior reasons, will help him to escape the Spokane
Indian Reservation. The problem is that, from Junior’s perspective, what seems like better
opportunity and freedom might, to the eyes of people in his larger community, look more
like abandonment and betrayal. Once Junior decides to attend high school off the
reservation at Reardan, he finds himself struggling both to discover his own personal identity
and to relate back to the Spokane community. Junior has struggled, and often failed, to find
acceptance there his entire life. He feels a responsibility to prove himself to Rowdy and the
other Indians that see him as a traitor. At the same time, Junior tries to make a new name for
himself at the all-white Reardan High School. At Reardan, Junior gains fresh perspective on
the things that are bad about life on the reservation—alcoholism, hopelessness, and a lack of
tolerance. But, with the help of friends and family, Junior is also able to relate his personal
ambitions back to his Indian heritage.

By wandering farther from home, Junior better understands his roots. Thanks to his dad and
his dad’s friend, Eugene, Junior is able to see leaving the reservation and going to an all-
white school as courageous. He isn’t a coward, but a warrior. Likewise, Rowdy helps Junior
to see how his going to school off the reservation can be linked back to the nomadism—the
wandering from place to place—that was a part of his tribe’s culture for centuries. It is the
people wasting their lives getting drunk on the reservation, Rowdy suggests, that have
forgotten their community. As time goes on, Junior also finds belonging in other groups, like
the Reardan basketball team, and he realizes that he is part of many less apparent
communities, other “tribes,” like the tribe of poor people and the tribe of tortilla chip and
salsa lovers. Junior takes comfort in the fact that he belongs to these groups. They
strengthen his identity. At the same time, he hopes that, by asserting himself in the right
ways, he can bring good things back to the communities that support him.
B. Poverty and Privilege
One of the main differences between life on the reservation and life in Reardan is that most
of the families on the reservation, including Junior’s, are poor. This means that Junior often
misses meals and school because his parents have no money for food or gas. Embarrassed by
his poverty, Junior does everything he can to keep his Reardan classmates from
understanding the true state of affairs. He often invents excuses or lies to his friends by
saying he accidentally left his wallet at home. The white students at Reardan are financially
better off, but Junior is surprised to learn that the privilege that accompanies wealth and
white skin doesn’t insulate his friends from pain and problems. Penelope, despite her
popularity and beauty, is bulimic, and Gordy, despite his shining intellect, is emotionally
isolated and has difficulty relating to others. These problems of privilege are no less real than
the problems of poverty, but the main difference—the thing that makes poverty so
challenging—is that poverty prohibits people from pursuing hope and opportunity. And,
what’s more, poor people often find themselves without the privilege to sort through or find
help for their own equally real emotional struggles.

C. Racism
Junior always uses the term “Indian” to describe himself and the others on the Spokane
Reservation. He never explains why he favors this term over the arguably more politically
correct “Native American.” One can argue that “Indian” is more direct, less sugarcoated.
Reardan’s white football star, Roger, certainly does not celebrate Junior’s heritage when he
tells Junior that, “Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo.” Using the term Indian,
then, is also a concession to the racism in Junior’s social environment. The net effect of the
racism and bigotry levied against Junior and his tribe on personal, institutional, and national
levels is a collective disempowerment that stands in stark contrast to the unconscious
privilege and opportunity in the neighboring white communities. But Junior comes to realize,
he participates in these same structures of prejudice. Junior sometimes uses homophobic
language, for example, as a way to relate to and communicate with people like Rowdy for
whom such language is the norm. Junior’s friends, likewise, show him that he pays so much
attention to Penelope in part because she is white. Junior’s realization that he, too, has some
racial biases is a key part of his moral education.

4. Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text’s major themes.

A. Sports and Competition

Sports play a significant role in Junior’s life before and after his transition to school in
Reardan. On the reservation, Junior is never a stand-out player. The other kids refer to him as
“retarded” because he grew up stuttering and physically awkward because of his
hydrocephalus. Once Junior steps off the reservation, however, he discovers he can be a
stand out athlete. Junior becomes a freshman starter on Reardan’s varsity basketball team.
He argues that his new success is based on attitude, not ability. He didn’t wake up one day to
discover he was secretly a great basketball player. On the contrary, the support and
encouragement Junior receives from Coach and his teammates gives Junior unanticipated
confidence. In this sense, sports demonstrate the importance of community in helping
individuals reach their ambitions. Junior often uses sports competitions in The Absolutely
True Diary of a Part-Time Indian to present moral lessons. From his try-outs for the Reardan
team, for example, Junior realizes that success can be more about persistence than skill.
And, when Reardan beats Wellpinit in the teams’ second match, Junior is reminded how
much Reardan’s success depends, not on skill, but on largely unnoticed social privileges.

B. Alcoholism
Junior says that alcoholism is what all unhappy families on the reservation have in common.
Junior’s own dad, Arnold Spirit, Sr., is an alcoholic who disappears for days at a time. But,
unlike Rowdy’s father, Junior’s dad is not physically abusive. Eugene, Junior’s dad’s friend, is
an alcoholic who is shot in the face over the last sip of a bottle of wine. Alcoholism is directly
or indirectly responsible for most of the tragedy that the Spirit family experiences. Junior’s
grandmother, for example, is struck and killed by a drunk driver. And Mary suffocates in her
trailer after she and her husband black out from binge drinking. But is alcoholism the cause
of these tragedies or the symptom of previous ones? In other words, is drinking so prevalent
on the reservation because Indians have been disenfranchised—abandoned by, and cut out
from, society at large? Junior refuses to let past suffering serve as an excuse to justify
present mistakes. After Mary’s death, he promises his mom he will never drink.

C. Physical Violence, Domestic Abuse, and Bullying

From an early age, Junior is bullied because of the complications of his hydrocephalus—his
lisp, stutter, and ungainly stature. This bullying follows Junior into his teenage years when,
worried he will get beat up, Junior avoids participating in community events like the Spokane
Powwow. At least until Junior leaves for Reardan, Rowdy is Junior’s protector. Rowdy scares
Junior’s bullies away. But however bullied Junior is, Rowdy seems to have it worse. Like
Junior’s parents, Rowdy’s parents are alcoholics. The difference is that, when Rowdy’s father
gets drunk, he beats his son. This kind of domestic abuse is more common on the reservation
than it is in Reardan. Indeed, physical violence in general is an expected and encouraged part
of reservation life, and it unfolds according to unwritten rules. In fact, physical confrontation
is so common on the reservation that, once Junior starts attending Reardan, he is shocked to
discover that physical fights are completely taboo. That is, no matter how much Reardan kids
insult each other, their confrontations almost never come to blows. The different
relationship to violence on the reservation and in Reardan is further indication of the
opportunity gap that exists between the two communities.

5. Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

A. Oscar
Oscar is a symbol of the powerlessness that accompanies poverty. Junior tells the story of
Oscar, the Spirit family’s pet dog, to explain why hunger is not the worst aspect of being
poor. Hunger is no fun, but there’s a way in which going hungry for a while makes one
appreciate food more—it even makes food taste better. For Junior, however, the worst part
about being poor is not being able to help others. Junior says that Oscar is his best friend. He
says that Oscar is more reliable than any of the people in his life, including his parents and his
grandmother. Yet, when Oscar gets sick, the family has no money to take Oscar to the vet.
What’s more, Junior realizes that, as an Indian boy on the reservation, there is no chance for
him to get a job to make money to pay for Oscar’s veterinary care. Junior is not only
incapable of helping Oscar in the present, he sees no way of helping Oscar in the future.
Junior’s parents see no other options either. Junior’s dad takes Oscar into the back yard and
shoots him. Oscar death, then, also represents the harsh realities faced by those living below
the poverty line.

B. Junior’s dad’s last $5

Junior’s dad’s last $5 represents the ambivalence—the double aspect—of human nature.
Few characters in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian are wholly bad or wholly
good. Junior’s father is no exception. Around the Christmas holidays of Junior’s first year at
Reardan, Junior’s dad disappears for a little over a week. Junior knows his father is on a
drunken bender, and, when Junior’s dad returns after New Year’s and tells Junior to fish the
last $5 he saved for him out of his boot, Junior recognizes how easy it would have been for
his dad to have spent those $5 on a bottle of booze. Junior marvels at the self-control it must
have taken his dad to save him this Christmas gift. He calls it “a beautiful ugly thing.”
Accordingly, Junior’s dad’s gesture is both pathetic and heroic. The amount itself is also
significant. $5 is not enough that it can change Junior’s life, but just enough that the gift is
not an entirely empty gesture. Junior’s dad’s $5 shows the extent both of his faults and of his
love.

C. Turtle Lake
Turtle Lake, at the center of the Spokane Reservation, is unfathomable—no one, not even
scientists using a small submarine, has been able to measure its depth. In this way, it
represents the deep mystery that resides with the Spokane people. Junior learns a
frightening story about Turtle Lake from his father. A dumb, white horse nicknamed Stupid
Horse drowned in Turtle Lake, only to wash up later on the shores of another nearby lake.
When some people took Stupid Horse’s carcass to the dump to burn it, Turtle Lake caught on
fire and Stupid Horse’s burnt body once again appeared on its shore. In light of this story,
one might argue that Turtle Lake represents the incomprehensible and supernatural as they
exist within nature. The divide between the “spiritual” and “natural” world is, after all, a
European Enlightenment concept. For many of the American Indian groups displaced by
white American settlers, the body and soul—the natural and spiritual—were indivisible.
Turtle Lake, and its haunting presence at the center of the Spokane Reservation, points back
toward that largely lost way of seeing the world that exists deep in the memory of the
Spokane people.

6. Key Facts
• Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
• Author: Sherman Alexie
• Illustrator: Ellen Forney
• Type of Work: Novel with illustrations (Graphic Novel)
• Genre: Bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel); autobiographical fiction; young adult
fiction
• Language: English
• Time and Place Written: Early 2000s in and around Seattle, WA
• Narrator: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is narrated by Arnold Spirit, Jr.
The novel unfolds like a diary, with each entry (except the first, which narrates Junior’s
early childhood) narrated just after it is meant to have occurred.
• Point of View: Junior narrates the story in the first person, sticking closely to his own
experiences, but he occasionally re-tells stories that have been told to him by others or
includes his sister Mary’s messages. Junior mostly describes characters objectively (i.e.
with physical and sensory details) but he does not hesitate to give his opinions about
other people’s appearances and actions.
• Tone: Junior’s tone his humorous and sincere. He is not always a completely reliable
narrator, but his unreliability is usually a result of youthful naiveté rather than malice.
• Setting (time): around 1980
• Setting (place): The Spokane Indian Reservation and the town of Reardan in Washington
state.
• Protagonist: Arnold Spirit Jr.
• Major Conflict: The major conflict of the novel is Junior’s struggle to find acceptance and
belonging in two vastly different communities, the Spokane reservation and Reardan
High.
• Rising Action: Junior decides to leave the high school in the reservation town of Wellpinit
and attend school in the neighboring white town of Reardan. Junior’s Indian friends feel
betrayed and abandoned, while, at Reardan, Junior is treated like an unwelcome outsider.
• Climax: Junior experiences three tragic deaths in rapid succession, his grandmother,
family friend, Eugene, and his sister Mary all die. For Junior, Mary’s death is the most
traumatic.
• Falling Action: As Junior’s family mourns the recent deaths of loved ones and Junior
completes a successful first year at Reardan, the Spokane community seems to realize it
has treated Junior unfairly, and Junior finds unsuspected support among the new friends
he has made at Reardan.
• Themes: Individual Ambition versus Communal Obligation; Poverty and Privilege; Racism
• Motifs: Sports and Competition; Alcoholism; Physical Violence, Domestic Abuse, and
Bullying
• Symbols: Oscar; Junior’s dad’s last $5; Turtle Lake
• Foreshadowing: When Junior is so insistent, early on, that he and Rowdy are
inseparable—that Rowdy is closer to him than family—Junior’s insistence foreshadows
the rift in his and Rowdy’s friendship. Junior’s good moods and high expectations—his
excitement for geometry class, for example—usually foreshadow a negative turn of
events—hitting Mr. P in the face with the textbook. Junior’s anxiety and fear—like that
Mr. P will punish him or he won’t make the basketball team—are often followed by
unsuspected positive events—Mr. P’s apologizing to Junior, Junior’s making varsity.
Likewise, Mary’s overly-optimistic view of her depressing life in Montana foreshadows her
coming, tragic death.
7. Full Quiz
A. Why does Junior say he was bullied as a child on the Spokane reservation?
(a) He was weak
(b) He was cowardly
(c) Complications of his hydrocephalus
(d) He was friends with Rowdy

B. How does Junior’s sisters spend her days after graduating from Willpinit High?
(a) She works at the post office
(b) She hardly ever leaves the family basement
(c) She works at the casino
(d) Writing a romance novel

C. What does Junior do to his geometry teacher, Mr. P?

(a) Breaks his nose with a textbook
(b) Junior trips Mr. P by accident with his big feet
(c) Eggs his car
(d) Begs him for a better grade

D. What does Junior say is the worst thing about being poor?
(a) Going hungry
(b) Not having gas to get to school
(c) Not being able to help others
(d) Not being able to pack up and move off the reservation

E. Which of these is NOT one of Junior’s nicknames on the reservation?

(a) Junior (c) The Globe
(b) Hydrohead (d) Chief

F. When do Junior and Penelope have their first major conversation?

(a) When they both dress as homeless people for Halloween
(b) When they both dress as David Bowie for Halloween
(c) When Junior asks her to the winter formal
(d) When Junior overhears Penelope throwing up in the girls’ room

G. What does Rowdy’s dad say when Junior delivers a cartoon for Rowdy to Rowdy’s house?
(a) To leave his son alone (c) That Junior can’t draw
(b) That it’s kind (d) That it’s gay

H. What does Gordy say Junior should get from books?

(a) A metaphorical boner (c) A marsupial boner
(b) A metaphysical boner (d) A magnificent boner

I. What does Roger do after Junior punches him in the face for his racist joke?
(a) Tells Miss Warren
 (b) Shaves Junior’s head at Penelope’s party
(c) Concusses Junior at basketball tryouts
(d) Asks Junior if he is crazy

J. Who stitches Junior’s forehead during the first Wellpinit versus Reardan basketball game?
(a) Coach (c) Gordy
(b) Rowdy (d) Eugene

K. How does Mary leave the reservation after Junior decides to go to Reardan?
(a) She joins a circus
(b) She marries a poker player and moves to Montana
(c) She marries Eugene and moves to Seattle
(d) She tours the country in mobile home

L. How does Penelope find out that Junior is poor?

(a) Roger tells her
(b) She sees Junior walking the twenty-two miles home from school
(c) She can tell from the way Junior dresses
(d) Junior asks to borrow money

M. Which of the following is NOT a reason that Reardan beats Wellpinit in their second
basketball match up?
(a) Junior shuts Rowdy down on defense
(b) Some Wellpinit players are so poor they skipped breakfast
(c) Junior scores twenty points
(d) Reardan has home court advantage

N. Who gives Junior a ride home after the winter formal?

(a) Penelope’s dad, Earl (c) Roger
(b) Eugene (d) Junior’s dad

O. What does Ted try to return to the Spirit family at Junior’s grandmother’s funeral?
(a) A headdress
(b) War armor that belonged to her husband
(c) An elaborate quilt
(d) A powwow dance outfit

P. Why does Eugene get shot in the face outside 7-Eleven?

(a) He tries to intervene in a robbery
(b) He fights with his friend over a sip of wine
(c) He’s shot by police who mistake him for a robber
(d) The clerk shoots him while he’s robbing the store

Q. How does Junior find out Mary dies?

(a) Miss Warren calls him out of class
 (b) He sees the fire on the news
(c) Junior’s dad comes to get him out of school
(d) He receives a call from Mary’s husband

R. Who does Junior run into in the woods during Mary’s funeral?
(a) Penelope (c) Gordy
(b) Eugene (d) Rowdy

S. In what subject is Junior’s worst grade on his Reardan report card?

(a) Woodshop (c) Geometry
(b) Gym (d) Physics

T. What would Junior’s dad have been if he had more opportunity?

(a) A professional basketball player (c) A renowned chef
(b) A college professor (d) A jazz musician

U. What is the outcome of Reardan’s successful basketball season?

(a) Roger gets recruited to play Division I basketball
(b) The team loses early in the state playoffs
(c) The team wins the state playoffs
(d) The team loses to Wellpinit in the state championship

V. After Mary dies, what does Junior’s mom make him promise?
(a) That he will escape the reservation by being a successful artist
(b) He will never leave the reservation
(c) He will never drink
(d) He will take care of her when she is old

W. What does Junior say makes all unhappy families on the reservation alike?
(a) Poverty (c) Their Indian heritage
(b) Alcoholism (d) Domestic abuse

X. According to Junior’s dad’s story, what happens after some Indians burn Stupid Horse’s
body?
(a) Stupid Horse’s ghost wanders the reservation at night
(b) Beaver Lake dries up
(c) Turtle Lake catches on fire
(d) Turtle Lake freezes over

Y. How does the novel end?

(a) Junior and Rowdy climb a giant tree
(b) Junior and Rowdy play one-on-one
(c) Junior and Rowdy swim in turtle lake
(d) Rowdy slams the door in Junior’s face
8. Study Questions
A. How does the novel treat the subject of racism? Do Junior’s attitudes about race evolve as
the novel progresses?
B. Junior’s friendship with Rowdy is one of the main sources of conflict in the novel. What
are the various ways in which this conflict shows itself? Why, despite all the ways that
Rowdy has mistreated Junior, is Junior so adamant about being Rowdy’s friend?
C. At the time of the events in the novel, life in the Spokane tribe little resembles
conventional notions of what Native American life was like in the days before Columbus.
Nevertheless, Junior finds ways to link his present experiences back to the ancient
traditions of his tribe. How does Junior make these connections and who are the main
characters that help him to establish this important link with his past?