Both authors indicate how the Native American of today has been forcibly separated from the land and thought of his ancestors and what a devastating effect this has had on Native American society. In both cases, the writers speak from a position inside that society. Both writers express a sense of continuing loss in the Native American community and indirectly lay blame for this with the federal government and the institutions it has created for the administration and control of Indian affairs, with the land embodying both the traditions of the past and the culture of people.
Endrich gives the unique perspective of mixed blood on her views of the Native American cultural identity. Her father is German and her mother is of the Turtle Mountain band of the Chippewa Indians, hailing from the Great Plains. Endrich attended Dartmouth University, and is a masterful storyteller. Some of her other works include That's What She Said: Contemporary poetry and Fiction by Native American Women, Jacklight (1984), The Beet Queen (1986), and The Bingo Palace (1994).
Alexie was born on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington. He attended college at Gonzaga University, and Washington State University. Alexia has been criticized as portraying Indian life on reservations as demeaning. According to bibliographical notes in the Abcarian, Alexie replied "I write what I know and I don't try to mythologize myself, which is what some may seem to want, and which some Indian men and women writers are doing we don't live our lives that way". Some of Alexie's works include The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), Indian Killer (1996), and The Toughest Indian in the World (2000). Alexie's story This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix Arizona provided the basis for the film Smoke Signals (1998).
The main characters of Eldrich's The Red Convertible can be paralleled to the main characters in Alexie's This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix Arizona.
