NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLER
“This is a novel about what it means to inhabit a land both yours and stolen from you, to simultaneously contend with the weight of belonging and unbelonging. There is an organic power to this book—a revelatory, controlled chaos. Tommy Orange writes the way a storm makes landfall.” —Omar El Akkad, author of American War
Tommy Orange’s “groundbreaking, extraordinary” (The New York Times) There There is the “brilliant, propulsive” (People Magazine) story of twelve unforgettable characters, Urban Indians living in Oakland, California, who converge and collide on one fateful day. It’s “the year’s most galvanizing debut novel” (Entertainment Weekly).
As we learn the reasons that each person is attending the Big Oakland Powwow—some generous, some fearful, some joyful, some violent—momentum builds toward a shocking yet inevitable conclusion that changes everything. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will to perform in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and loss.
There There is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. It’s “masterful . . . white-hot . . . devastating” (The Washington Post) at the same time as it is fierce, funny, suspenseful, thoroughly modern, and impossible to put down. Here is a voice we have never heard—a voice full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with urgency and force. Tommy Orange has written a stunning novel that grapples with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and profound spirituality, and with a plague of addiction, abuse, and suicide. This is the book that everyone is talking about right now, and it’s destined to be a classic.
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Sexual Content - 0/5
0/5
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Violence - 3/5
3/5
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Language - 5/5
5/5
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Drugs and Alcohol - 2/5
2/5
Summary
I’m not usually a big reader of literary fiction, so when I picked up There There as our latest book club choice, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. It ended up being a pretty good read. I’m interested in Native American culture (other cultures in general, really), so in that respect, it was an eye-opening story. The author takes an unvarnished look at urban Native American life, which made it all the more interesting, because most of what I’ve previously read had to do with either Native American history or life on the reservation. This book shows what it’s like for Natives in contemporary cities, while also intersecting with the issue of gun violence. The author uses the voices of a dozen different characters to tell his story. At first glance, these people all seem to be from different places and walks of life, but Mr. Orange masterfully weaves their individual narratives together into a cohesive whole in which many of their lives intersect in unexpected ways. And, of course, they’re all drawn together by the common goal of attending the Oakland Powwow, each for their own reasons. As a writer myself, I was impressed with the way in which the author seamlessly floats between first, second (I’ve never read anything written in this style before), and third person, past and present narration styles. There’s also a lot of metaphor and symbolism, much of which I’m sure I didn’t pick up on. In fact, I only realized how much there was while we were having our book club discussion and other members brought up certain elements of the story that were symbolic, which I hadn’t even thought about until that moment. So, overall, it was a well-written book that I enjoyed, just not one that quite made it to the place where I could say I loved it.
One of the reasons for that is that it became very difficult to keep all the characters straight. There were some whose narratives were more engaging and relatable for me. I was most drawn in by the three women, Opal, Jacquie, and Blue, along with the three young brothers, Orvil, Loother, and Lony. The women’s stories all tie together, and perhaps as a woman myself, I simply gravitated toward them and sympathized with them and each of their individuals plights. There’s a sadness, with each of them having dealt with issues such as alcoholism and domestic abuse, but perhaps also a certain hopefulness in them, as well. The three boys, despite engaging in a lot of teasing and arguing with one another, seemed to be a close-knit group, which was heartwarming to me. I also enjoyed Dene’s narrative in which he’s working on a storytelling project that he hopes to use to reconnect younger Natives with their shared history and culture. There’s also Edwin, the self-conscious, overweight geek who still lives at home with his mom even though he’s about thirty years old. Since I’m a geek married to a geek, I felt like I understood him in a way. Then there’s a group of ne’er-do-wells, who are planning to rob the powwow. Even though I probably related the least to these guys, I do have to give the author props for trying to humanize each of them to make them and their actions more understandable.
My biggest criticism of the story is in the author's use of 3-D printed plastic guns. I feel that he took fairly extreme creative license with this, because 3-D printed guns haven’t reached the level of functionality that was being portrayed. I know this because my husband is a 3-D printing enthusiast who has also done a great deal of research on guns of both the traditional and printed variety. 3-D printed guns can’t really fire off a lot of shots in close proximity, because they don’t have magazines like traditional semi-automatics, and even if a person was able to reload several times, the heat of the multiple bullets being expelled from the chamber in close succession would eventually overheat the plastic muzzle, most likely causing it to explode. Also the author only addresses the issue of getting the bullets past metal detectors, but even the most basic 3-D printed guns still need a metal firing pin, which is never mentioned. So, if you’re not aware of these things going into reading it or are less of a stickler for factual inaccuracies than I am, then this probably won’t be as much of an issue, but it did raise a flag for me.
If you’re a fan of literary fiction who enjoys parsing hidden meanings, then I’m sure There There will most likely be a big hit for you. I’m not one of those people, so the book probably didn’t resonate with me in the same way it will for others. I’m sure there’s a lot of food for thought within its pages, but I just happen to be more of a tell it like it is kind of reader. I also was rather frustrated by the ambiguous nature of the ending. There are many lives hanging in the balance, not all of whose outcomes are told or even hinted at. Our book club members managed to extrapolate some of their fates, but without their help, I would still be in the dark with some and still am with others. There were also unanswered questions with regards to other aspects of the story, such as whether familial connections were made between certain characters. I’ve never been a fan of ambiguity in my book endings. Good or bad, I just want to author to tell me what happens. I will say that despite being rather gruesome at times, I did like the prologue and interlude, both of which offer more perspective on the Native American experience and will probably teach readers things they may not already know. So bottom line, There There should resonate with frequent readers of literary fiction. As for me, it may not make it to the top of my list of favorites, but it was a good read that I generally enjoyed and would recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about Native American culture.
Review provided by The Hope Chest Reviews (http://www.thcreviews.com)