News at Eleven: In "Blankets," he [Sherman Alexie] depicts his father,

a diabetic alcoholic, in the hospital after surgical amputation of half of one foot and three toes of the other. "There was no privacy, not even a thin curtain," he writes. "I guessed it made it easier for the nurses to monitor the postsurgical patients, but still, my father was exposed--his decades of poor health and worse decisions illuminated--on white sheets in a white hallway under white lights." It's a devastating image, one that resonates ("Valediction") with the burning light his father sees, on his deathbed, as "God passing judgment on Earth."

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Finding the father within

~~~~~~~~~~~