Title
Flight
Author
Sherman Alexie
Copyright
2007
This book is one of the best I've read in a long time. It is a story about violence, about the cycle of violence and abuse that has punctuated our American history and how we perpetuate violence through our actions. Sixteen-year-old Zits is a ward of the state. His mother died when he was six and he hasn't ever met his Indian father. As a result, he's just another kid in the foster care system being bumped from home to home.
When Zits meets Justice, a white kid that seems to have all the answers, he starts down a dark path that leads him to commit a terrible crime that results in his own death. However, this is not the end of the book. In fact, this all happens in the first fifth of the book, the real story begins when Zits finds himself on a strange vision quest, through which he experiences a series of lives all marked by violence in one form or another.
At first, Zits doesn't understand what he is seeing, but as the story progresses, he learns from each inhabitation. Don't get the wrong image here, these aren't sappy-sweet lessons, they are bitter and harsh and somewhat devastating. He learns that even muderers have something they care about, he learns that heroes are not always heroes, he learns that people tell themselves they're doing the right thing even when they know they're not. Character after character is presented to us as Zits lives through their lives. Sometimes redemption is possible for these people, but more often, not.
The themes of this book include, violence, the cycle of violence, personal identity, racial identity, foster care, abuse, and redemption. The only problem I have with this book is the ending. The ending doesn't fit for me, but truthfully, I'm glad he wrote it that way. What happens in the end? I'm not telling. Read it and find out!
