One of the most devastating images in Sherman Alexie’s young adult novel appears in a cartoon drawing of the hero’s parents, as they might have been had someone only paid attention to their dreams.

The father becomes the fifth-best jazz sax player west of the Mississippi, cool in sunglasses and vintage houndstooth pants. The mother, in a stylish bob and intellectual glasses, stars as “Spokane Falls Community College Teacher of the Year 1992-1998.”

These fictional parents, church-going and sober, break the readers’ hearts. Their dreams mimic those accomplished by a number of real-life Spokane residents, yet remain so out of reach on the Spokane Indian Reservation where they live. That’s where the author grew up as well, 50 miles northwest of the city, where in 1999 the poverty level was nearly three times that of the entire state of Washington.

If you’re a regular reader of this newspaper, you likely live on a piece of that tribe’s tradition homelands, which stretch across 3 million acres from Eastern Washington into North Idaho. And, if so, you, too, should join the celebration of Alexie’s recent honor.

Last week he won the prestigious National Book Award for his astonishing semi-autobiographical young adult novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” (Little, Brown).

In that book, Alexie writes powerful stories of the poverty, alcoholism and crushing sense of defeat that shadowed his early years. The protagonist, like the author, transcends that darkness by following his fierce and considerable talent into a world of hope.

Alexie has said he was nearly debilitated by the fear that overcame him as he wrote this book. “I was afraid of my own history,” he said in an interview posted on the National Book Awards Web site. Yet he overcame this anxiety to write of his loneliness, humiliation, anger and triumph in a book that has riveted adolescents.

“The number of brown-skinned teenagers who have embraced the book is so great,” Alexie told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “One kid told me, ‘This is like “Catcher in the Rye” for minorities,’ and this award makes it feel like that’s true.”

This fall at Spokane’s Havermale High School, native students flocked around Alexie when he visited during his recent book tour. English teacher Jalene Finley explained their fascination with the author: “Our kids have stories and their stores are just like (Alexie’s) stories.”

“Kids,” Alexie explained, “relate to the feeling of loneliness and isolation. That transcends race and class. On this (recent) book tour, I’ve spoken in the richest suburbs and some of the poorest inner cities. Kids everywhere feel isolated and lonely.”

But Alexie’s book deserves to be embraced and celebrated by readers of all ages. In it he describes the worst aspect of growing up in poverty, which isn’t, he writes, the hunger. An 18 1/2-hour fast can be survived. Far more difficult is the loss of a child’s very best friend in the world, a lovable mutt named Oscar, sick enough to need a veterinarian’s care, unlucky enough to live with a family that lacks the cash for an office call.

Far too often, the stories of contemporary American Indians have been ignored, an oversight that stings like a fresh slap, a social loss nearly impossible to overcome. Alexie’s brave, brilliant work restores this region’s shared memory and profoundly enhances the wealth of our collective culture.