Flight

His first novel in ten years is the hilarious and tragic portrait of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful, swift prose, Flight follows this troubled foster teenager—a boy who is not a "legal" Indian because he was never claimed by his father—as he learns that violence is not the answer.

The journey for Flight's young hero begins as he's about to commit a massive act of violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time to resurface in the body of an FBI agent during the civil rights era, where he sees why "Hell is Red River, Idaho, in the 1970s." Red River is only the first stop in an eye-opening trip through moments in American history. He continues traveling back to inhabit the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Bighorn, then rides with an Indian tracker in the nineteenth century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. During these furious travels through time, his refrain grows: "Who's to judge?" and "I don't understand humans." When finally, blessedly, our young warrior comes to rest again in his own life, he is mightily transformed by all he has seen.

In Flight, he seeks nothing less than an understanding of why human beings hate.

Endorsements

"Alexie, like his characters, is on a modern-day vision quest," — Time Out