Book tip

There There

Tommy Orange

Orange, a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and a native of Oakland, is pretty much THE new literary sensation in America and perhaps the world. "There There" is his debut novel, a kaleidoscopic narrative told from the perspectives of several Bay Area Native Americans — all destined to meet at an upcoming Powwow in the Oakland Coliseum. The array of characters is a dazzling and starkly revelatory panoply of a contemporary American reality almost completely unknown to most citizens, and that's part of the author's intent. But the several plotlines — seemingly disparate at first — coalesce in a heart-carving denoument. If there's any complaint, I had to flip backwards in the book several times to remind myself which character had done what, but it all works in devastating fashion. I met the softspoken and polite Orange when the book came out and he appeared at a signing event in the Mashantucket Pequot Museum. The advance hype was already steamrolling, and it was interesting, as I held my new copy, to wonder if the praise was justified. Let me answer that for you: Oh, hell, yeah. 

— Rick Koster