By Santee Ross, University of Montana

“Call me Zits.

Everybody calls me Zits.”

This is the beginning of “Flight,” a book written by Sherman Alexie.

Alexie is pretty well known in Native circles for his books as well as his iconic and gut busting screenplay “Smoke Signals.”

I read “Flight” over the summer and as with most of Alexie’s work, I laughed till I cried then cried till I laughed.

“The skin doctor tells me I have six months to live. I'm exaggerating. I don't have a skin doctor and you can't actually die of zits. But you can die of shame. And, trust me, my zit-shame is killing me.
I'm dying from about 99 kinds of shame.
I'm ashamed of being fifteen years old. And being tall. And skinny. And ugly.
I'm ashamed that I look like a bag of zits tied to a broomstick.
I wonder if loneliness causes acne. I wonder if being Indian causes acne.”

That was an excerpt from Flight that shows how Alexie is able to blend humor with thought provoking material. Because seriously why do so many Indians (myself included) have acne?

The book is about a 15-year-old half-blood Indian who can travel through time.

Kind of sounds weird and out there but in fact it’s amazing.

The boy, Zits, travels to various events in the past. He becomes different people who lived through wars, violence and conflict.

In one time travel he is a FBI agent tracking down members of AIM in the 70’s.

He becomes a little Indian boy during the battle of the Little Big Horn.

A flight instructor whose friend has just flown one of the airplanes into the twin towers.

Zits travels to so many situations where he sees the violent acts through someone else’s perspective but at the same time through his own.

The most memorable part of the book for me was when Zits hears a story from his friend Dave.

Dave witnesses a tragic event that involved children and parents that were too drunk and high to notice.

I remember it because there are too many real situations that involve children who become victims of violence.

Plus I was at work trying to hold it together.

“Well, you know, it's funny. The response to it, which I thought would be interesting, has been about half positive and half negative. So that's been very fascinating to watch, because it was, for me, a very - a book of an idea. The notion that violence is perpetuated on both sides, you know, of any conflict,” Alexie said about Flight in an interview with NPR.

I love Alexie’s work because I can relate to it on a personal level and that is what makes his books fun to read.

So many of his characters I see in my cousins, aunties and friends.

Santee Ross (Hopi/Lakota) is from Lander, Wyo.