SOURCE: "Fancydancer," in The New Yorker, Vol. LXIX, No. 12, May 10, 1993, pp. 38-40.

In the following essay, the critic explores the impact of Alexie's life experiences on his literary works.

Why the nondescript Northwestern city of Spokane was chosen as the site of the 1974 World's Fair is difficult to understand. The "attractions" are almost gone now, except for one that was there all along. Perhaps Expo '74's greatest legacy, or perhaps its only one, was to reveal a roaring stretch of the Spokane River by tearing down an inner-city rail yard that had obscured it from view for more than seventy years.

For centuries, the falls were a spiritual center for the Spokane, a nomadic American Indian tribe whose name means "children of the sun." The Spokane came here in the spring from their winter villages to camp in tepees by the riverbank, lured by the salmon that...