There There

by Tommy Orange

ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

WINNER OF THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, O, The Oprah Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, GQ, The Dallas Morning News, Buzzfeed, BookPage, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews   

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLER 

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.

• ISBN10: 6047766633
• ISBN13: 9786047766635
• Publish Date: 1 October 2019 (first published 5 June 2018)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Imprint: Gioi
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Language: vie

Reviews

[nannah]

(2.5)
I think Tommy Orange tried to fit too much into this novel. There’s so many characters, so many literary devices, so many PoVs, and I wasn’t a fan of the writing style. It’s obviously a case of “just not for me”, because it’s got nearly four stars here.

Content warnings:
- racism
- genocide
- graphic descriptions of the above
- drug & alcohol addiction
- non-black characters using AAVE
- fatphobia
- rape
- mass shooting
- domestic abuse

Representation:
- every PoV character is indigenous

There There shows glimpses into the lives of twelve indigenous Americans before they all attend the Oakland Powwow, and then shows how their stories converge at the powwow itself. One of these characters is Dene Oxendene, hoping to honor his late uncle by creating a video project that gathers indigenous people's stories from their own mouths.

I see this book a lot like Dene’s video project (but with a clearer goal in mind, as he states in the prologue): to talk about the “urban indigenous American”, whose story hasn’t been shared as widely before.

The book's prologue and interlude is heartbreakingly devastating and well-written. It goes into the history of American indigenous people from their points of view. It’s probably the most impactful thing I’ve read this year so far.

I wish the rest of the book is as well written, though. It feels awkward and jolting, with entire paragraphs of sentences consisting of two to four words each. That’s obviously a style choice, but it just isn't my thing.

Tommy Orange also attempts a lot with this debut, trying to fit 12 individual PoVs in one novel under 300 pages. Though I commend him on that, I'm not sure how well that works. Of course, I’m in the minority here, since the book has been hailed as an instant classic. But on page 210 or so, the last character is just being introduced. It doesn’t leave much room for these characters to have any sort of arc -- or do anything besides be introduced before they get to the powwow. It could be argued that these characters having arcs don’t matter as much as us simply getting that important glimpse of their lives, like what’s represented by Dene’s project. I can appreciate that, even if that’s also not exactly my thing. I could probably learn to appreciate that more.

I think every kind of PoV is written, too: first person, third person, second person, and in every kind of tense. I’m not exactly sure what that does for the novel, to be honest … maybe to help distinguish between characters? Because they all have the same voice, which makes differentiating them very, very difficult.

These issues aside, my low rating is honestly a matter of taste alone. If he ever writes a nonfiction book, I will probably be one of the first in line to read it.

[Kevin Costain]

For 300 pages, There There is one of the fastest moving books you'll encounter. The characters are drawn well, and the "Native" perspective is represented well. There There was a joy to read and didn't offer all the answers about things that were happening (much like life, I guess).

[clementine]

Good concept, uneven execution. I really enjoy novels made up of multiple intersecting narratives, but the pitfall is that some are just more compelling than others. With this many perspectives packed into a relatively short novel, I was left feeling like we never truly dove all the way in, and some of the more interesting characters were sacrificed to make room for some who were fairly boring. I think this particularly weakened the ending, which was so climactic but which just didn't quite fit together. There was an attempt at explaining the underlying reasons for robbing the powwow (namely a cycle of abuse of poverty), but it just wasn't as convincing as it could have been. The writing was uneven as well - there were times when it was gorgeous, particularly when it was more lyrical, but the sparser prose style just felt a bit underdeveloped to me. I was okay with the switch between first and third person, but the one second person chapter really threw me off. Some of the characters were so interesting and well-drawn, particularly Jacquie. I did feel like her many family connections were at the heart of the novel and that it lost its focus elsewhere. Definitely a promising debut, but far from perfect.