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Published in 1993, "First Indian on the Moon," by Sherman Alexie, is a collection of prose poems/short stories and poetry about childhood, poverty, alcoholism, interracial dating, love, sobriety, racism, and Native American identity.

I enjoyed Alexie's short story collection, "Ten Little Indians" (2004), and his memoir, "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (2017), a lot more than this work.

I also fully admit that it is harder for me to read Alexie's work now, in light of the sexual misconduct that surfaced in 2018 amidst the #MeToo movement --



It breaks my heart that Alexie has harmed women writers, abusing his literary power to coerce women to sleep with him or give him sexual favors.

I will still read Alexie's work. But his words about romantic love simply fall flat for me now.

It's awful that so many men are taught to sexually abuse women in our patriarchal culture. Alexie has made bad choices, but were I in his place, who's to say I wouldn't be just as abusive. I would hope that I wouldn't be an abusive man who uses my power to take advantage of women. But I am not a man, and I'll never know.

I do think we're all more than our mistakes, even our worst mistakes. I hope Alexie uses his voice to reckon with the abuse of power he's displayed against women. I think he could share some much needed, soulful insight on why he made the choices he did, and the impact the revelations of sexual misconduct have had on his life.