Blues



The title of Sherman Alexie's first novel, Reservation Blues, sums up the two central themes that reverberate throughout the story: reservation life and the particular, peculiar status of blues music in American history and identity. The novel follows the story of a Native American blues rock band based near Spokane, Washington, whose rise and fall is dictated, at least partially, by the cursed guitar of blues legend Robert Johnson. However, Alexie's use of the blues is not as strictly literal, because he uses the particular rhythms and identities of the blues in order to explore contemporary Native American life. By comparing and contrasting Alexie's presentation of the Native American history and culture with his use of the blues, it is possible to see how the novel argues for a kind of hybrid identity that is based in a pre-American culture but which nevertheless reconstitutes itself through...
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