Edited by Grace L. Dillon
I read on the back that this is the “first-ever anthology of Indigenous science fiction,” so I have to compliment Grace L. Dillon. I definitely want to read more!
I chose to focus on two pieces from “The Native Slipstream”: Diane Glancy’s short story, “Aunt Parnetta’s Electric Blisters,” and the excerpt from Sherman Alexie’s novel, Flight.
First, I just have to rave about the stunning turns of phrase by Diane Glancy:
“Millions of years can be ‘kinked up and crawled over.’” (26)
“Stars were holes where the rain came in.” (32)
“…inside the coils, an ice river surged.” (32)
“It was the bright sparks of the Keetowah fire, the holy bonfire from which smaller fires burned, spreading the purification of the Great Spirit into each house. Into each hard, old pinecone heart.” (33)
I could go on. This is definitely a strong entry into Native Slipstream science fiction,where “time as pasts, presents, and futures…flow together like currents in a navigable stream” (Dillon 3). The combination of technology and tradition pull the reader under, into Aunt Parnetta’s consciousness, and time feels suspended as it does in a fridge, where, Glancy keenly observes, it is always winter. In class, we’ve examined time as linear, as circular, and now there comes this image of a spiral, the fridge’s coil intestines. It is a dream-like world where Aunt Parnetta finally escapes from the whining of the refrigerator to meet the Great Spirit, where she comes to the realization that she, too, complains and moans—much like the fridge. Aunt Parnetta is more of an old soul, but she still longs for a spark to warm her “hard, old pinecone heart.” (Glancy 33) By slipping through “multiverses,” Aunt Parnetta renews her connection with the Great Spirit and remembers again, the purifying power of holy bonfire. I still don’t have any concrete idea of what the “electric blisters” the title refers to are, and I’m perfectly content with that.
Sherman Alexie’s narrator in Flight is a much younger voice, a boy called “Zits,” who immediately came across as engaging and genuine—even though he was planning to shoot up a bank. “Justice” as a living incarnation unfettered by time has set Zits on a path to achieve revenge. The “slipstream” style has alternatively been described as disruptive of realities or concrete perceptions, but in Flight, the disruptions are smooth, as opposed to interrupting; Alexie makes you accept Zits’s ability to circumnavigate linear time without question: “I walk for days. I walk for years.” (Alexie 57) For example, Zits sees a young white boy with his mother and thinks: “I want to be him. I close my eyes and try and step in his body. But it doesn’t work. I cannot be him.” (54) The disruption has already happened when Zits tries to enter another’s body, but another narrative is simultaneously being told, one in which Zits cannot bridge the imperialist history that sets the boy apart from him. On another level, it could be Zits understanding that he cannot assimilate. On the simplest level, it could be Zits’ longing for a mother who would love him like that, and it is often the simplest lessons—“Maybe you’re not supposed to kill… Maybe you’re supposed to believe that all life is sacred.” (Alexie 57)—that are the hardest to grasp, because forgiveness is a process that requires time—whatever that is.
My other favorite stories were Gerald Vizenor’s “Custer on the Slipstream,” Simon Ortiz’s “Men on the Moon,” Sherman Alexie’s “Distances,” and Eden Robinson’s “Terminal Avenue.” The entire collection points to the fact that Indigenous peoples have been dealing with apocalypses and alien invasions for a long time, and through science fiction, they can freely envision Indigenous futurisms in an arena where imperialist motives are laid bare and traditional Western beliefs, such as time as linear, are challenged.
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