The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The second communication from Mary takes the form of a handwritten letter, adding yet another distinct formal element to the book: diary entries, cartoons (which themselves vary in style), emails, handwritten letters. Not only do these many different forms add to the authenticity of The Absolutely True Diary, but they also serve a metaphoric purpose, representing the many different forms of the self can take. Just as Junior realizes late in the book he is a composite of many different tribes, so too is the novel a composite of many different forms. The fluid, cobbled-together form of the book reflects the Junior’s fluid, cobbled-together identity.

In her letter, Mary reveals that she is working on her life story. Essentially, she and Junior are now working on different versions of the same project: each sibling is writing about their life. Their parallel writing projects calls to mind Mr. P’s apology earlier in the book about how he failed Mary, and it suggests that Mary is following a similar path to Junior, only years later. She sends a photo of her new trailer home, which Junior reinterprets as a cartoon, editorializing with the not-so-generous comment that it resembles a TV tray. His cartoon serves as a reminder that nearly everything in the book is being seen and modulated through Junior’s lens.

“Reindeer Games” introduces basketball as a more prominent motif in the book. The basketball team becomes its own community, or “tribe” as Junior later asserts, with Coach as the leader. By joining the team, Junior further integrates into the Reardan community and further distances himself from his Indian community, who view his joining the team as further betrayal. Metaphorically, Junior’s joining the Reardan basketball team might be seen as joining a different team in the “game of life.” The Reardan basketball team is stronger, faster, and more powerful than the Wellpinit team, a metaphor for the White world’s predominance and power over the Indian world.

Rowdy knocks Junior unconscious during the game and receives a technical foul for doing so, suggesting that he did so purposefully. The moment seems to be in direct conversation with Junior’s beating on Halloween, where he notes that his assaulters didn’t want to send him to the hospital, and he suspects Rowdy would never hurt him. In actuality, Rowdy is the one to send Junior to the hospital, and it seems that he does want to hurt Junior. That Junior and Coach bond over “stories” is significant; after all, Junior is a storyteller, and stories are what help him create his strong bonds with Rowdy and Gordy. Junior’s father is also a storyteller, often telling Junior stories to make a point (he tells one about Junior’s mother helping him reach the water fountain, for example, in order to encourage Junior to join the basketball team). Junior’s insistence on not repeating his Coach’s stories is a curious one, and it suggests that he and his Coach had meaningful conversations too important to recount.

“A Partridge in a Pear Tree” marks the lowest point in Junior’s relationship with his father. The pressure to provide a magnificent Christmas while living in poverty takes its toll on Junior’s father, and he self-destructively drinks to cope. Junior’s father’s bender comes on the heels of Coach’s kindness and steadfastness in the hospital, contrasting the two characters. The brevity of the chapter emphasizes its painfulness, as though Junior doesn’t want to fully analyze and convey the pain of his father’s alcoholism. His father’s last five dollars in his cowboy boot is at once “beautiful and ugly:” beautiful that his father saved the money, but ugly he had to save it all, ugly he was drunk for a week. “Beautiful and ugly” is a paradox that might be applied to many things in the novel: the reservation, Junior’s father and his relationship with alcoholism, Junior’s relationship with Rowdy, Junior’s experience at Reardan.