He looked into the crowd for approval, saw his mother and father. He waved and they waved back. Smiles and Indian teeth. They were both drunk. Everything familiar and welcome. Everything beautiful.

The pressure of succeeding in college became too much for Alexie and he began drinking heavily to cope. He excelled at school and became a star player on the basketball team which was coincidentally called the Reardan High Indians. While in the short story collection they were in their teens Reservation Blues show the boys in their thirties.

Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7 1966) is a poet writer filmmaker and comedian.