Book Review of There There by Tommy Orange
UPDATED: 2/5/2023
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290 pages, published in 2019
YOU MAY ENJOY THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE:
literary fiction * fiction about indigenous people
TRAVEL INSPIRATION:
Set in Oakland, California, the title of There There refers to a quote from Gertrude Stein, who grew up in Oakland and revisited as an adult, proclaiming, "There is no there there."
For those unfamiliar with Oakland, it is best described in proximity to its shinier sister city of San Francisco, just 12 miles away across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. It is best described in reality as a world away. Over the years, Oakland has been and continues to be gentrified, which has put residents of color under additional stress and pressure.
On a personal note, my aunt lived in Oakland in the late 1980s and early 1990s when I lived in Southern California, and I have many pleasant memories of our trips to the area. There is wonderful hiking in the California hills and access to everything the Bay Area has to offer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: tommy orange
Tommy Orange was born and raised in Oakland and currently lives about two hours east in Murphys, California. Orange is a Native American, enrolled as a member in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, and so the topics dealt with in this novel are personal. There There was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, which is quite an achievement for Orange’s first novel. To date, this is Orange’s only novel, though hopefully he is working on his next!
Interestingly, at one point in the novel, Orange discusses surnames provided to Native Americans, including the popularity of names based on colors, which would include his own.
REVIEW OF There there BY tommy orange
There There filled a gap for me that I didn't know existed. That gap was the Native American voice in literature and more generally in society. From what I can tell, the United States seems less willing to tackle this challenge than other countries who similarly disrupted indigenous populations.
The prologue of the novel, which is about nine pages in length, hits the reader from the very start with a different history of the start of the now-United States, the evolution of the native experience, and the unique modern day urban Indians, who struggle to self-identify in a world that often does not see them.
From there, we meet the first of the twelve characters whose stories are explored over the course of the novel, which itself is divided up into four parts with sub-sections in the voice of each of the twelve characters with variable order and frequency of appearance. Foundational to the plot is a large Oakland Pow-wow looming large on the calendar and at which many of the previously unconnected characters converge.
Sometimes novels with so many characters can be hard to follow with the reader having to constantly remember who is who. I personally did not have much of a challenge with that in this case given the strong, unique personalities exhibited by each character. Through these characters, the reader is shown a history that may be unknown - for example the real-life occupation of Alcatraz by Indians in 1969-1971 in an effort to reclaim the land as their own.
The characters’ struggles are numerous - alcoholism, dysfunctional home lives, poverty, drugs, and what it means to be truly native when traditions are only learned from YouTube videos, like the way Orvil teaches himself a traditional dance to perform at the Pow-wow.
The story is not a pretty one in sum but it is eye-opening, enlightening, and for me, at least, life altering in that it has highlighted my lack of knowledge of the Indian plight in this country in the present era. Orange’s voice is an important one, so I hope this is only the first in long line of novels from him (he is in his late 30s).
DISCUSS There there
What concepts did this novel raise to you that were new or unexpected? What other native writers have you read and/or would you recommend? Add your thoughts to the comments section below!
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