Tommy Orange

 

There There​

This novel, about Native people in Oakland, California, explores the idea that individual and collective pain manifest themselves in the body. Pain shows up in myriad ways: overeating, eczema, alcohol and drug use, dysphoria, tattoos, unplanned pregnancy, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, cancer, and fetal alcohol syndrome … In this regard, the novel is thematically important; it’s also superbly well executed, with disparate characters introduced in seemingly unrelated vignettes. Orange hints at connections between characters, which he later dispels or confirms. In the end, Orange depicts a complicated and interconnected community, in which, in spite of attempted erasure of culture, deep kinship ties remain. Orange spins associations and connections that never arrive at resolution but culminate in an intimate web of hope and pain.

​

Wandering Stars

Wandering Stars, the prequel/sequel to There There, details "the aftermath" of There There's culminating events. It also tells what came before, spanning five generations of Red Feather family history, whose members endured the Sand Creek Massacre, federal Indian boarding schools, and displacement in Oakland, California. If There There is all about embodied intergenerational trauma, this book makes the source of that trauma explicit. The novel speaks to the persistence of trauma in the body, largely via addiction. But it also speaks to the persistence of people ... of their music, dance, love, strength, and family ties that persist in spite of attempted erasure. Likewise, the wandering star is a persistent metaphor throughout the novel, a source of both pain and strength, inextricably tied to characters' existences. This book stands alone, but I'd highly recommend reading both of Orange's novels.

​