Not since Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine has such a powerful and urgent Native American voice exploded onto the landscape of contemporary fiction.
Tommy Orange's There There introduces a brilliant new author at the start of a major career. "We all came to the powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling threads of our lives got pulled into a braid--tied to the back of everything we'd been doing all along to get us here. There will be death and playing dead, there will be screams and unbearable silences, forever-silences, and a kind of time-travel, at the moment the gunshots start, when we look around and see ourselves as we are, in our regalia, and something in our blood will recoil then boil hot enough to burn through time and place and memory. We'll go back to where we came from, …
Not since Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine has such a powerful and urgent Native American voice exploded onto the landscape of contemporary fiction.
Tommy Orange's There There introduces a brilliant new author at the start of a major career. "We all came to the powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling threads of our lives got pulled into a braid--tied to the back of everything we'd been doing all along to get us here. There will be death and playing dead, there will be screams and unbearable silences, forever-silences, and a kind of time-travel, at the moment the gunshots start, when we look around and see ourselves as we are, in our regalia, and something in our blood will recoil then boil hot enough to burn through time and place and memory. We'll go back to where we came from, when we were people running from bullets at the end of that old world. The tragedy of it all will be unspeakable, that we've been fighting for decades to be recognized as a present-tense people, modern and relevant, only to die in the grass wearing feathers."
Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame in Oakland. Dene Oxedrene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle's memory. Edwin Frank has come to find his true father. Bobby Big Medicine has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather; Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the Big Oakland Powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions--intentions that will destroy the lives of everyone in his path. Fierce, angry, funny, groundbreaking--Tommy Orange's first novel is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen.
There There is a multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people. A glorious, unforgettable debut
"There There" is a great modern novel set in present-day Oakland. I love it because it goes from the philosophical to the practical, to the every day lives of indigenous/native folks. The characters' lives are intertwined in ways that are at times complex but after all, simple. It's a nice easy read that is still able to deal with complex topics of post-colonialism, trauma, healing, and community.
Send it to a friend in Europe who hasn't spent much time in the US/bay area, and read it yourself. It gives significant perspective on what people face here.
Overall an excellent read, though I enjoyed the first 2/3 more than the ending. The first person chapters felt stronger and much more character-development-rich than the later third person ones did. I found Opal and Jacquie to be the most interesting; Opal's perspective of the time she spends at Alcatraz was my favorite chapter in the book. Excited to check out the playlist Tommy Orange made for the book: open.spotify.com/playlist/7mCLMPEZhEohsZXS2SDuq1?si=pTVshsizRCWNGRIzUIhfuw
This book is so good that I had to go back and change the ratings on some of the books I read because I was apparently throwing out 5 star reviews all willy nilly. Every character’s story was compelling, from the kid who sits in front of the computer all day to the postal carrier with spiders in her legs, and the writing is just a gut punch. When writing can create a visceral reaction you know it’s good. 10 stars!
Sometimes I think content of essays could have been better delivered through the experiences of the characters, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Enjoyed might even be the wrong word. I enjoy it in hindsight but the book lets you know early on that this is no happy ending kind of story and you feel the dread of events being pulled toward than unhappy ending like a black hole. You feel the dread as you wish anything would turn events away from what must happen. This book is excellently written and I cannot wait for Tommy Orange's next book.
2.5 stars. This book is about Native American identity, and, to a lesser extent, Oakland. If those topics interest you, this book is probably worth reading, but otherwise, it doesn't really stand on its own as a novel. It's less a novel than it is a collection of character sketches that happen to coincide at the end. Until then, there are too many barely-related characters to keep straight and not enough plot to hold them together.
