There There: A novel

Tommy Orange

Jun 2018 · Sold by Vintage

About this ebook

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

A contemporary classic, this “astonishing literary debut” (Margaret Atwood, bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale) “places Native American voices front and center” (NPR/Fresh Air).

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. They converge and collide on one fateful day at the Big Oakland Powwow and together this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism

A book with “so much jangling energy and brings so much news from a distinct corner of American life that it’s a revelation” (The New York Times). It is fierce, funny, suspenseful, and impossible to put down--full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with urgency and force. There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.

Don't miss Tommy Orange's new book, Wandering Stars!

Ratings and reviews

I had to leave a review after reading some of the comments of people who scored this novel at a mere one star. I am no critic, but what I can say is that this book will make you feel all the emotions. This style of writing is very attractive to me— I do not appreciate convoluted or over complicated fluff. Sherman Alexie would be proud.

I was initially very excited to read this, but it left me a little disappointed. The characters essentially have the same issues and there isn't much development to counteract this. Their relationships toward the powwow seemed forced as well. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

If you took the most boring characters in the world and put them in the most boring storyline with an extremely boring writer you get this book. All of the characters are full of self pity for something that happened way before they were alive. Get over it. Move on.

About the author

TOMMY ORANGE is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, he was born and raised in Oakland, California.