There There

I learned about this book because the author came to my school freshman year. I didn't get one of the free copies they were giving out at the time, but it stayed on my mind and I saw it as an audiobook so I figured I'd check it out. Oh boy, what a journey, harder and harder to put down. If you're familiar with "The Overstory" by Richard Powers, you're introduced to several different characters with some common themes that link them to a major event—that is what came to mind when reading this book structure wise. I never finished "the Overstory" and I wouldn't compare the plot otherwise. For "There There", the final event, as well as things that happen to characters of various indigenous descent, all connected to Oakland, will sit with you for a long time. It's different from other books by indigenous folx, I've read with an emphasis on cultural loss/revitalization/reclamation in an urban context. It reminds me more of what I've heard from indigenous podcasts about current indigenous issues. I really enjoyed the role of grandmothers in this book as well.

My experience reading this book was more of a 3 than 4 star experience, but it’s my own fault. I rated this based on what I think I’d have rated it if I read it differently. This is a lesson learned for my husband and I. We read this book together, and when we read books together, we read them slowly. 20-30 page increments, once a week. This book has so many POVs and characters to keep track of that we were regularly like, who’s that again?? each time we read. It made for a confusing, disconnected read as we got further into the book.

What I liked about this book is that most of the POVs felt unique, like there was a well rounded person there. I thought that was a great achievement given each character doesn’t get that many pages in total.

I also loved the exploration of Indigenous identity. The ways in which each person grapples with it differently. That was well suited to multiple POVs.

I think it’s interesting that the ending isn’t a surprise. It’s more this thing you see coming and dread. You’re also sad at how people’s desperation leads them to do stupid or violent things. If there’s a message here, I think part of it would be how White colonialism/supremacy has created these conditions. I don’t think I want to say it destroyed Indigenous culture or something, despite how this book ends - what I have read/viewed has taught me that’s not a good way to frame it. But definitely done great damage.

 Every few years or so there'll be a big movie about slavery and what a terrible thing it was. I never watch them. Why not? Because I already know that. It's a message that was, rightly, pounded into my head since I was in elementary school. I'm sixty now, which means I came of age during the Civil Rights era. Believe me, I know all about what a bad thing slavery was.
 The same is true when it comes to movies about mistreatment of American Indians, so the prologue of Tommy Orange's There There had me saying uh-oh to myself. It's a clips file of mistreatment and disrespectful treatment of American Indians, albeit a well-written one. Many of the examples are ones I knew already.
 The book doesn't stick to that, though. It's about American Indians today, ones living in Oakland, California.
 Two things you should know before reading it:
 At first it looks like a collection of profiles of individual American Indians. There's more to it than that. Their stories coalesce and they all have something to do with one another. Keep that in mind when reading There There.
 Plastic guns made on 3-D printers are unreliable and unsafe and not are usually single-shot guns. There are revolver models of them, but the cylinders are the size of coffee cans.
 An excerpt I liked is one when one Native American is coaching others on how to perform a dance at a large gathering at a city football stadium:

"Now you young men in here, listen up. Don't get too excited out there. That dance is your prayer. So don't rush it, and don't dance how you practice. There's only one way for an Indian man to express himself. It's that dance that comes all the way back there. All the way over there. You learn that dance to keep it, to use it. Whatever you got going on in your life, you don't leave it all in here, like them players do when they go out on that field, you bring it with you, you dance it. Any other way you try to say what you really mean, it's just gonna make you cry. Don't act like you don't cry. That's what we do. Indian men. We're crybabies. You know it. But not out there," he says, and points to the door of the locker room.