The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian

For some reason while reading this book I actually forgot the focus of our class so far has been mental illness. I was much more wrapped up in the cultural/identity aspect of the story. This is probably because when I think of mental illness, I associate it with the 'big' obvious things: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc. Alexie made a point to show how much alcoholism was a part of the Indian culture, but this becomes a mental illness in itself. Addicts experience a change in brain chemistry just as any other person with an illness does. People can be more predisposed to it than others too. It tends to get a bad stigma because it comes across as a choice, but people do not choose to get addicted. Reading this novel definitely opened my eyes to this. For the most part everyone seemed like good people, they were just suffering from a illness that had become epidemic among them. With each generation that depended on alcohol, it became even harder for the next to deny it.