294 pages
English language
Published Oct. 30, 2018 by Alfred A. Knopf.
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
Disappointed. The writing was immaculate, addressing the plight of Native Americans in cities, Oakland was well represented, but it was sooo constructed. Too many characters, and not clear why, that also all are related or discover connections. Jumps too quickly between characters, and the story becomes very weird in the end.
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 …
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.
Wonderful, insightful writing on a depressing, yet important topic. My favorite part of the book was the "Blood" section of the "Interlude".
Author weaves Native American stories that intersect and cross generations. Be prepared for a touching yet sad ending.
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 …
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.
"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.
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: …
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.
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.
A friend used the expression “blown away” to describe her reaction. I can’t do better than that. Exquisite writing, the kind of sentences that make me want to buy my own print copy so I can underline and dogear and revisit. Heartbreak made more so by its everyday matter-of-factness.
The last part of this book is so good, I had to stop reading after each chapter to process. A remarkable book, and definitely one of the best of 2018.
Okay, so I think that what happened, after 80% of the book is spent bringing all these unknowingly connected people together, is that the bad guys die and the characters who have just rediscovered each other all survive. But it’s not clear. And we don’t see them working out that, in fact, they’re nearly all close relatives. Still, the many stories are intricately woven together and the build up is quite well done even if the ending comes too quickly and without obvious resolution. Although I suppose in a shooting that’s exactly what the chaos and confusion would be like. In any case, if the point of the book is to introduce the concept of modern urban Indians as real people whose daily lives are inextricably connected to their larger history, on that level it was entirely successful.
