“Powerful. . . . a revelation.” —The New York Times “With a literary authority rare in a debut novel, it places Native American voices front and center before readers’ eyes.” —NPR/Fresh Air One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year and winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, Tommy Orange’s wondrous and shattering bestselling novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all … follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.
One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Dallas Morning News, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe
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A gripping deep dive into urban indigenous community in California: an astonishing literary debut!
It is no small feat to capture with such clarity and authenticity this number of characters and deftly weave them together as one might an intricate basket. The writing is sharp, and Orange pulls no punches braiding significant historical events that have shaped the Native American experience into the dialog. Even to the end, nothing feels contrived. Finishing with an artistic eloquence that I found myself rereading immediately. This is a brutally honest portrait of the Urban Indian in Oakland, California. This modern story transcends stereotypes and romanticism always reminding the reader, “We are still here” It contains the pain and sorrow of abuse, addiction, obesity, fetal alcohol syndrome, abortion, adoption, poverty and violence. But within this collage of affliction is connection with family and culture, the importance of powwow, and the devastating effects of manifest destiny upon Native peoples.
This book will remain on my top ten forever. Thank you to Tommy Orange for reaching deep into his collective soul and delivering this masterpiece. A must-read for everyone.
Quotes
“But what we are is what our ancestors did. How they survived. We are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, for our heads, for our bounty, or just to get rid of us.”
“You have to dance like birds sing in the morning,” she said, and showed him how light she could be on her feet. She bounced and her toes pointed in just the right way. Dancer’s feet. Dancer’s gravity.
Congratulations to Tommy Orange for winning the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award -John Leonard prize for best first book ; The American Book Award; and The PEN/Hemingway Award
Powerful, heartbreaking, and absolutely necessary. In the age of #blacklivesmatter and #metoo, we cannot forget about the Native American population who have been criminally ignored. There There is specifically about the people considered ‘Urban Indians’: the generation born in the city as a result of both voluntary and involuntary relocation of their ancestors (Indian Relocation Act/Indian Termination Policy).
“Plenty of us are urban now. If not because we live in cities, then because we live on the internet. Inside the high-rise of multiple browser windows. They used to call us sidewalk Indians. Called us citified, superficial, inauthentic, cultureless refugees, apples. An apple is red on the outside and white on the inside. But what we are is what our ancestors did. How they survived. We are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, for our heads, for a bounty, or just to get rid of us.”
Tommy Orange has a voice that you can’t help but open your heart to because everything about it is real: a history of genocide and the current condition of a struggling people, but not without smile-worthy moments of humor and beauty. Oh my heart. This is an excellent book.
We read literature to enter other lives and other worlds. If you are not Native and living in Oakland, California, then that’s what might happen to you reading this book. You get to enter this world. I enjoyed all the stories. The writing. The perspective.
A friend who recommended this book to me mentioned that the ending was a little frenetic, and I would have to agree. Writing complicated action sequences isn’t, from this evidence at least, Tommy Orange’s strength as a writer. But the prose craft, the voice, the visceral strength of the writing, the creation of characters who are both culturally specific and universally relatable — all of these added up to a book that I enjoyed more than anything I’ve read in a long time and that I highly recommend. There were so many passages that I had to stop and savor and reread, characters whose stories I wanted to continue. Check it out.
A narrative composed of 12 separate storylines, Orange’s novel reminds the reader that Native American culture is a living, breathing thing rooted in the luminosity of spirituality, the generational pain of historic injustice, and the negotiation of vitality and relevance in a modern world. Orange manages the intersection of so many interconnected narratives with deft and delicacy.
An original novel with a strong voice delivering contemporary Native experience. The structure reminds me of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. The reader is introduced to a variety of interrelated characters moving inexorably toward a shared tragedy, in this case at an Oakland powwow.
This novel made me think about the supremacy of voice in a work. Author Tommy Orange violates conventions and conventional wisdom about the writing of a suspense novel, stopping at places to deliver expository essays. But the brilliance of There There makes me wonder if too many authors aren’t bowing before the god of conventional wisdom so that too many books have a “sameness” to them. We need more writers like Tommy Orange, and publishers brave enough to print them, to give us brilliant, new experiences like that of There There.
Debut author Tommy Orange presents a memorable story detailing many different characters’ experiences around and leading up to a singular event — a local powwow — that will affect all their lives. The Native American author sheds light on the experience of Natives living in cities (as opposed to on reservations), specifically Oakland, CA, where Orange grew up.
The multiple-points-of-view setup of this novel works well, and it exemplifies Orange’s power as a writer. It takes a few chapters to get into, but eventually the stories become entwined in delicious ways and the characters begin making subtle cameos in the others’ chapters. The Native experience is approached from many different angles in this way, and Orange succeeds in giving readers a glimpse into the lives of characters who have Native heritage (and are often members of specific tribes), but who weren’t necessarily raised with any knowledge of their tribe’s traditions or culture.
I don’t say this about a novel often, but I think There There could have benefitted from some additional length (thus the four-star rating). There are many characters, storylines, and points of view, and in some cases Orange does not go into the depth I would have loved to see from this work, especially in regards to Edwin and Blue’s relationships with their parents (and each other). Regardless, Orange is a promising new voice, and I’m interested to see what he offers next.
An amazingly thoughtful and provocative look at life among urban Native Americans in Oakland, CA. Using a strong cast of characters sharing their stories across multiple generations, it speaks to urban life for marginalized populations and highlights both the successes and failures that impact these communities. As the plot reaches its climax, you’re not quite sure how the overlapping character stories are going to meld, but I can promise you won’t anticipate the final pages. I was left sobbing in bed as I read the final paragraph over and over. A truly moving look at a slice of American life we rarely heard told with such beautiful language and authenticity.
Native Americans often fade into the shady past wearing buckskin and headfeathers, but Tommy Orange redefines his people by giving them a modern story. Here he builds a climatic event through individual native people who seem random at first, living broken dreams, seeking their identity while coping with life. I enjoyed the way Mr. Orange ties everyone together while keeping them apart. This story will haunt your thoughts long after the last page, questions blooming with ghostlike obsession. His foreword shouldn’t shock you but it most likely will. Modern Americans who are not Native American feel uncomfortable with the truth of our past, often learning a sugar coated history in school or a deceptive vision from Hollywood. The reality is cold and brutal much like the people today who once owned the right to exist here and live lives free from persecution or excommunication from the land, aliens in a land of their inheritance. There, There may be fictional but it tells the truth.
When THERE THERE first came out, I picked it up, then put it down – picked it up a week later, put it down again. I struggled to identify with the Native American experience that was reported to be brutally described in this book. Then I asked myself – do we need to identify with the characters in a book to make the book worthwhile? Of course not. I was being a coward not to immerse myself in this book right at the start.
That said, better late than never. THERE THERE is a painful, if important read.
The title comes from a Gertrude Stein quote in which she refers to her childhood home of Oakland, California, as being so changed in her later life that it is no longer the city she once knew – i.e., there is no there there. Oakland is the setting for THERE THERE as well, but the author, Tommy Orange, speaks of the Native American experience on a larger scale, where memory of the old ways, of what it means to be a Native American, has been wiped out by modern life.
His solution? Telling stories about Native life so that it is never again forgotten. To this end, THERE THERE is comprised of stories within a story of individuals whose lives grow increasingly entwined as the plot unfolds. Orange’s prose is lyrical, perhaps too much so for some of his characters. But his plotting is careful and well planned, introducing one character after another, leading up to a climactic Powwow that is, in the end, riddled with bullets, realization, and reconciliation.
What does it mean to be an Indian? How does it feel to be an Indian? This, the author says, is his focus. And the novel is dark. It depicts the urban Native American who suffers without an anchor. The Native American’s past has been erased nearly as completely as his lands have been taken.
THERE THERE is powerful, tragic, but in odd ways hopeful.
One caveat? There are many characters to keep track of in THERE THERE, making the Audible listen a challenge for me. I suspect that this book is better read in print.
When I read the powerful Prologue in Tommy Orange’s novel There There through the First Look Book Club I knew I had to read this book. A distinct, strong voice offered an abbreviated history of Indian-European relations and our stereotyped images of Indians. It was brutal and blunt.
“We are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, our heads, for a bounty, or just to get rid of us.” Prologue, There There
I was a lucky giveaway winner and began reading the book as soon as it arrived.
Orange imagined a novel for the untold stories of urban Native Americans, people who have lost their traditions yet are labeled as ‘other’ by society. Readers meet a community of characters seeking to understand who they are, struggling with alcoholism, broken families, poverty, and addiction.
They are all headed to the Big Oakland Powwow, to reconnect with family or their heritage or to find an easy way out.
“We all came to the Big Oakland 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. We’ve been coming from miles. And we’ve been coming for years, generations, lifetimes, layered in prayer and handwoven regalia, beaded and sewn together, feathered, braided, blessed, and cursed.” from Interlude, There There
There are a lot of characters–twelve–and each chapter skips from one character to another, building our understanding of a bigger picture. We know from the first character’s story that everyone is heading into danger which creates tension as our investment in the characters deepens. The climax likewise is told from multiple viewpoints, and with Orange’s beautiful writing, even violence becomes a dance and an awakening.
The book is already a national bestseller that has garnered acclaim. It is a sensational debut.
There, There is a book unlike any I have read by an author who was unknown to me about people I have never stopped to consider. Our first people, Native Americans, who survived the genocide perpetrated against them by European invaders, live not only on reservations but among their invaders. Told from the perspective of a Native Person in an urban city, this wholly original story shook me to the core. I would say it is clever but that’s unfair. It’s far more than that. The writing comes from a place, from a voice, from a heart and mind that places you in a world that is fascinating, frustrating and heartbreaking all at the same time.
Tommy Orange broke my heart with this story and he also opened my eyes. This is clearly the best book I’ve read this year.
A one of a kind novel structure supports a group of fully developed characters in telling a story that is deeply emotional and moral. This is reality as it is never seen in print.
Tommy Orange is a fantastic writer. The book is like a poem, each word holds many meanings and many stories. The story is intense and tragic. I didn’t really like the ending, but, on the other hand, it was the most likely of outcomes and hope was present throughout, though is small doses. Orange follows the stories of a group of urban Indians with unusual connections, and each chapter is a poem to the lives of these individuals. I am thinking of reading the book a second time because the language is so beautiful and it was impossible to catch all the meaning the first time around. But the intensity caused me to take a break and think for awhile about the characters and their lives. The work is a literary accomplishment, well worth the read.
We have a rising star with Orange. Although his content was fragmented, on purpose, his style and unique rhythm gave this jam just enough flavor to enjoy the whole spread. Be advised, there’s a whole lotta characters to remember in this jam, so bring you’re A-game. They also switch from 1st, 2nd and 3rd person narratives, so that was a little annoying.
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. At first, I didn’t realize that the lives of the different characters would intersect. I loved the way it all came together at the end. Very touching portrayals, beautifully written.
Deep and wide, lyrical at times, full of compassion, devastatingly sad, and always coming from a heart dancing between despair and rage: that’s There There by Tommy Orange, an unforgettable, haunting tale of “urban Indians.” We learn the stories of twelve Native Americans whose lives ravel and unravel as they gravitate, pulled and pushed, toward a powwow in Oakland, California.
Let’s focus now not on the stories and characters but instead on the Prelude and Interlude of There There. In these crucial chapters, the author gives readers some historical and cultural context to the experience of Native Americans both past and current. I say “crucial” because most Americans are clueless about history and largely clueless about contemporary events as well (we’re too busy texting and exchanging “selfies”). Most of us aren’t capable of telling anyone what happened at Sand Creek, what the Long Walk was (not to mention the Trail of Tears), who Sir Jeffrey Amherst was, who Tecumseh was, or Sequoyah, why the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, or the name of the tribe whose home is the nearly 3 million acre reservation that crosses the Arizona/Sonora border. I’ll tell you this who they are. They are my neighbors.
As Orange puts it, “This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hor d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillow, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even hear of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff.”
Yes. And also, let’s mention the situation of young men in the world today: young men between the ages of 15 and 25 who want to be seen as effective, as competent, to be men in the fullest sense, to be warriors and leaders and healers and inventors. They don’t often get the chance. Too many are too poor, they have few educational opportunities, are stuck with very limited options and with no vision of a future beyond the drugs, the alcohol, the video gaming, and now, the 3-D printer that makes plastic guns possible.
Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield describes her attempts to care for her three grandsons, “It’s to prepare them for a world made for Native people not to live but to die in, shrink, disappear.” Native Americans are not “resilient;” they have survived. They have not disappeared. They will not disappear.
Beautiful, heart-breaking and with a powerful sense of place, this book introduced me to the kind of stories I’ve never heard before. A must read.
I was lucky enough to spend time in Oakland in the early 80s. Mr. Orange’s book brought the city to life for me from a perspective I could never have encountered on my own. Enlightening.