May 11

May 11 There There - Tommy Orange

Books that cause a stir or garner a lot of buzz usually deserve it. Sometimes you get a few that make you scratch your head in wonder. And then you come across a book that deserves every single bit of buzz it deserves. Tommy Orange’s There There is definitely one that deserves all of the praise.

I have been hearing about There There since before it was published. So many readers, bookstagrammers, reviewers and anyone else who has read this book couldn’t stop talking about it. And it was usually with a breathless, “Oh my god, I love that book” that I heard over and over again. So of course, I bought a copy and then promptly put it to the side to read later. That later was a lot farther down the road than I anticipated and once the virus hit, I had a LOT of time to read, just like the rest of the world. So I started making a dent in my TBR pile until I got to There There. It was worth the wait.

Tommy Orange is one of those writers who makes you wish you could write like him. Or makes you want to go back to college because you clearly don’t know how to write. In his book, he created characters that are walking evidence of pain. The kind of pain that is generational, the pain that is buried deep down in the bones of a people that have been massacred, shoved aside, and forgotten. The characters are “urban Native Americans,” the ones who left the reservation to try their luck in the city. They are barely surviving, experiencing the kinds of trauma that can turn a seemingly boring or normal life completely upside down.

The book centers around the Big Oakland Powwow, an event that draws the characters together in ways that could not be anticipated. The author drops mini-bombs in each chapter that reveals how each character is linked to the others. Each time I read a revelation, I would gasp in surprise and then try to keep track of everyone, which became easier after reading the chapters. And when I finally got to Part IV (Powwow) of the book, it was 5 am and I refused to go to sleep until I got to the end.

One of my favorite chapters in the book (it was very hard to choose because all of them are incredibly written and engaging) is “Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield” in Part I (Remain). In this chapter, Opal and her sister Jacquie are taken to Alcatraz by their mother to join in a protest. While there, Opal sees her sister acting strangely and seeks counsel from her trusted teddy bear, Two Shoes. It was during this conversation that I read the following passage:

You gotta know about the history of your people. How you got to be here, that’s all based on what people done to get you here. Us bears, you Indians, we been through a lot. They tried to kill us. But then when you hear them tell it, they make history seem like one big heroic adventure across an empty forest. There were bears and Indians all over the place. Sister, they slit all our throats.

When I tell you that I stood up from my seat and paced the floor for a good five minutes after I read that passage, I am not exaggerating. And I could not get that last line out of my head. Because Two Shoes was absolutely right.

There There will join the books that I’ve kept so I can read them again and again. Because I have to. The stories in this small book (it’s just shy of 300 pages) will never leave me. And I don’t want them to.

Where to buy: The Lit. Bar Books Are Magic Indiebound