In movie Victor's issues with his father is stressed more where as in the book victor has race issues.
The difference between the movie and the book is that, in movie Victor and his mother are alone where as in the book it is said that there is a council of indian who support them. .
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In the book, Victor's father claims to be "the only Indian who saw Jimi Hendrix play at Woodstock," although Victor suspects "there were hundreds." His father doesn't mind. "What's real?" he asks. "I ain't interested in what's real. I'm interested in how things should be." The son takes a lesson. When his father later abandons both his mother and him, Victor dreams of a homecoming and stands on the porch all night long waiting, wrapped in his mother's favorite quilt and pretending to hear the missing motorcycle and Jimi Hendrix' guitar. .
Thomas-Builds-the-Fire is the storyteller everyone mocks and no one listens to. .He via the ancient Indian art of oral storytelling, uses the past to try and heal the present. Thomas mixes elements of the traditional with elements of the modern in order to make his stories all that much more relevant, and all the more urgent. .
His goal is to motivate young reservation Indians like himself to put down the bottle. .
Aunt Nezzy, who sews a traditional full- length beaded dress that turns out to be too heavy to wear, believes that the woman "who can carry the weight of this dress on her back.will save us all.'' Is not there in the movie.
Victor never had any job in the movie whereas in book he had one but had lost it.
In the movie Victor gets money for travelling from his mother and Thomas,but in the book he gets money from the council.They travel by plane in book but in movie they travel by bus as they had very less money.
The accident part in the movie was made up just like suzie and her story.
Victor goes to phoenix to get his father's ashes according to movie ,but on the other hand in book his main intention is to get valuable belongings of his father.