Forgiveness and Grace for Unreliable Narrators

Short Story Club September 2026

AMANDA SAINT

SEP 21

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Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Hi Story Lovers,

In this month’s short story club, we’re exploring the theme of forgiveness and grace. Our reading follows Jackson Jackson, a homeless Spokane Indian in Seattle, on a 24-hour quest to raise $999 to buy back his grandmother’s stolen powwow regalia. He’s an alcoholic. Every time he get money he spends it on drinks instead of saving it for his quest. He passes out on railroad tracks. He fails, over and over.

But Sherman Alexie writes him with such tenderness and humour that we are always on his side. This story shows us that redemption can come from just not giving up, from the kindness of strangers, from moments of unexpected grace.

This Month’s Story

“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie

Read it here in The New Yorker

Synopsis

When Jackson sees his grandmother’s stolen powwow regalia in a pawnshop window, the pawnbroker tells him he can have it back if he brings $999 by noon the next day. Jackson has $5.

What follows is a 24-hour odyssey through Seattle as Jackson tries to raise the money. He sells newspapers. He buys scratch cards and manages to win $100, $20 of which he gives to the woman in the shop who sold him the card. Then he spends the rest on drinks for everyone in the Indian bar. He hooks up with a woman in the bar bathroom. He gets in a fight and passes out on railroad tracks. He feeds breakfast to three Aleuts who sing him songs about longing.

He fails, over and over, to raise the money. And yet, when he shows up at the pawnshop at midday the next day with $5, the pawnbroker gives him the regalia anyway.

The pawnbroker asks: “Did you work hard for this money?”

And Jackson did. He worked really hard at being human, at connecting with other humans, at trying, at showing up anyway.

Now let’s look at the craft of the story.

Craft Exploration

The Unreliable Narrator We Love

Jackson is unreliable in so many ways. He’s an alcoholic, he tell us he’s a liar and storyteller and that in general Indians are great mythmakers, he can’t always remember what happened. But we love him anyway.

Look at how Jackson introduces himself:...