Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: "Memorable and insightful re the subculture of Seattle Native Americans. Seriel killings incites racism in Seattle.". Here's something that Sherman Alexie himself commented about this novel: "a feel-good novel about interracial murder" ( )

“Son, things have never been like how you think they used to be.”
― Sherman Alexie, Indian Killer

Indian Killer is a highly disturbing but at the same time an amazingly written book. It is riveting.

I recently read this and felt a strong feeling of familiarity like I had read it before which I realized I had. Quite awhile ago.

I had this on my list for awhile. It is a very dark and bleak book and is not as you might think based on its title. It is a well written and complex story but because of how, not just dark, but genuinely disturbing it is, you should read it when you are in the right mood.

SPOILERS:

I realized I read it before when I predicted the exact ending and started remembering quotes. I had the same feeling, reading it a second time, which is to say that I wanted to jump through the book and change the ending. I guess that is the sign of a truly good book.

Dare I say I was drawn to John? I never thought he did it and reading and learning about him, his dreams, his alienation and watching his slow descent into madness was both gripping and horrifying all at once.

I have always found myself drawn to Native American culture. Even from a young age I did find myself just fascinated by the way they lived and by their love of freedom and their land. In Sherman Alexie's version of Seattle, we've not come far from where we once were regarding our attitudes toward this culture. I do not think, however, that he was referencing Seattle specifically. I mean yes that is where this novel takes place but I think it could have been anywhere as I think Seattle was a Metaphor for this country's treatment of Native American Culture as a whole.

So yes I would recommend it. It is unique and bitter and your soul might ache while reading it. But it is an amazing book that I think it would also be a great book for book clubs. There is much to talk about. ( )

This starts off w/ a melodramatic bang worthy of Michael Crichton &/or Dean Koontz.. It's a thriller.. but it's a thriller w/ something that Crichton & Koontz will never have: a subtext of sensitizing the reader to American 'Indians'.. & there's no simple resolution. There're plenty of characters, the most sympathetic for me being probably the activist Marie Polatkin, the one who articulates the most accurately (IMO). The complex issue of relations between 'Whites' & "Indians' in the 'United States' is dealt w/ in an appropriately multifaceted way.. maybe some of the characters seem a bit cartoonish but, hey!, if I'd written it they wd've been worse! In other words, Alexie clearly tries to deal a fair hand & does a great job of it. Alas, once again, the human condition is FUCKED.. & I have to agree w/ the majority of Alexie's presentation of it. I'll be reading more by him. ( )

This was more a 2.5 for me. I kept on feeling like the writer was forcing himself through this book. It just didn't do it for me. ( )

Sherman Alexi’s 1996 novel, Indian Killer, is a first rate serial killer novel that is almost certain to intrigue any fan of that crime fiction subgenre. But it is so much more than that.

First, the book’s title is, at first glance, a little misleading. From its title, most readers would assume that Sherman Alexi has written a book about someone who is choosing Native Americans as his crime spree victims (as in the sense that Custer was an “Indian killer”), but exactly the opposite is true here. Instead, this is a story about a Native American, an Indian-killer, who is terrifying Seattle by randomly murdering and scalping his white victims.

Second, author Sherman Alexi is himself a Native American who grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington. Alexi’s insight into what could motivate a main character such as this particular one to become the coldblooded killer he turns out to be makes the story all the more terrifying because it is all so logically crazy (if logical craziness is even possible).

Third, using primarily his secondary characters, Alexi shares a frank look with his readers about how many, if not most, Native Americans still feel today about what happened to their ancestors and the people responsible for the genocide they all too often suffered over the centuries. What Alexi’s characters have to say about all the Indian “wannabes” out there, those people who want so desperately to claim that they carry Indian blood for reasons of their own, is particularly damning. It is reminiscent, although it predates it by more than two decades, of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s embarrassing exposure as a shameless fraud who claimed to be a Native American entirely for her own personal gain.

So, there is already a lot packed into Indian Killer that readers will want to consider. And that’s even before the realization that an Indian is stalking white men sparks an all-out race war in Seattle. As the search for the killer goes on and on, tensions are high on both sides. Seattle’s Native Americans are nervous about leaving the reservation, and those who live in and around the city are mostly keeping their heads down. White hotheads, possibly as much to disguise their own nervousness and fear as much as anything else, are starting to mouth-off at any Indians they see on the streets. Seattle’s homeless Indian population is in particular danger from the nasty retaliation that occurs after each white victim is discovered.

Throw into the mix a novelist who badly wants people to believe his claim that he is an Indian; a bigoted radio talk show host who keeps his listeners on the verge of anti-Indian violence at all times; and a young Indian college student who leads campus protests about the bigotry she believes is directed at Indian students like her, and the city is sitting on a powder keg.

Bottom Line: Indian Killer is a memorable novel that only a Native American would have had the real credibility to write. There is almost as much in between the lines of this one as there is in the plot itself. It is a well written, fast-paced thriller with a message, a book that I recommend for all the reasons I’ve mentioned. ( )