The Absolutely True Story of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie: The Novel Cure for the inability to forgive

If you're the sort that generally chooses resentment over forgiveness, humble yourself with Sherman Alexie's irreverent, cartoon-strewn, largely autobiographical tale of a boy with much to forgive in a broken world

Ailment: Inability to forgive

Cure: The Absolutely True Story of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie

If "sorry" is the hardest word, "it's all right" is surely the second. Yet this seemingly small shift in attitude has such a powerful effect on those involved, releasing the wrongdoer from shame and conferring on the wronged dignity and grace, you'd think we'd be tripping over ourselves looking for chances to make it.

If you're the sort that generally chooses resentment over forgiveness – or a victim mentality over a shrug of the shoulders – humble yourself with Sherman Alexie's irreverent, cartoon-strewn, largely autobiographical tale of a boy with much to forgive in a broken world.

Right from the moment he's born, Junior, a Native American, has pretty much everything going against him. Treated as a punchbag by kids and adults alike, he has a too-large, too-round head (earning him the nickname "Globe"), brain seizures, and 10 teeth more than he should have.

He's also awfully skinny, has a squint, lives on a "rez" – and is the only one of his peers who can imagine a future beyond it. His father is generally drunk.

So when Junior decides he's going to join the white kids' school, 20 miles up the road, he seems only to be inviting a slew of new grievances.

Yet he has a secret weapon which, ultimately, saves his sanity, and possibly his life: his ability to forgive. He forgives his father for drinking the funds set aside for Christmas presents. He forgives his new classmates for their taunts. He forgives his wild best friend, Rowdy, for abandoning him.

The ultimate act of forgiveness, of course, is that offered to the nation for keeping the Native Americans on no-hope reservations, fobbed off with out-of-date textbooks and half the painkillers white people get because, apparently, they feel less pain. It's his wise old grandmother who shows him the way with her magnanimous attitude. Listen up, and she'll show you, too.

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