I felt so conflicted about having fled the rez as a kid that I created a whole literary career that left me there.

My career means, if you're a non-Indian writing about Indians, at least there's one Indian in your rearview mirror.

Certainly I'm angry at the way Indians have been treated and continue to be treated. But I don't think it's a helpless emotion.

Gordie, the white boy genius, gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote, 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn't know Indians, and he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons: the frikkin' booze.

I remember when people used to think I was smart. I remember when people used to think my brain was useful. Damaged by water, sure. And ready to seizure at any moment. But still useful, and maybe even a little bit beautiful and sacred and magical.

It's a weird thing. Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten the reservations were meant to be death camps.

I look more Indian when I'm serious.