There there. What a beautiful novel. Everyone should read it.
I read a review about this debut novel and immediately wanted to buy it. It is by Tommy Orange, a Native American who followed a writing programme at the Institute of American Indian Arts. I don't know how well he could write before the programme, but he can certainly write now.
The novel's title refers to a sentence by Gertrude Stein: "There is no there there", in which she commemorates that the home, the surroundings, the area she grew up in are no longer there. Stein was writing about Oakland, and the novel also takes place in Oakland. It involves several characters of Native or part-Native descent as they prepare for the Big Oakland powwow (I didn't know what a powwow is, but thankfully the novel opens with an essay by Tommy Orange explaining this, and explaining why these remaining shreds of Native culture are so important to keep and to treasure and to broadcast to a wider audience). Some of the characters organise the powwow, others plan to dance at it, visit it, or rob it. This also shows the various states of destruction these characters' lives are in; some are recovering alcoholics, some are drug dealers or users, many come from broken or mixed families. But at no point does their tone of voice turn dramatic or sad; this is just the way their lives are.
All character's lives are somehow interconnected, but in each chapter one character is the main focus point. These chapters are written in the first, second or third person, which gives the novel a very diverse structure. It also made me feel I got to know some of the characters better than the others. The earlier chapters are quite long, with detailed background knowledge of most of them, while the later chapters taking place at the powwow are sometimes only a couple of sentences long. The only downside to this structure was the amount of characters, several of which are named a variety of Charles or Carlos, which made for a confusing read sometimes. I think some of them could have been left out.
Apart from the plot (which is gripping) and the characters (which are deep and engaging) there is the language of the novel. Wow, this guy can write. He has the capability to mix very down to earth, easy descriptions with deeply meaningful messages and words. "Calvin sits down next to the big guy and gives him a slight, general whatsup-type head nod. The guy lifts his hand and waves, then seems to immediately regret the wave because he puts his hand back down as fast as it went up and gets out his phone like everyone does now when they want to leave without leaving." You can see this happening. You can also feel the emotional layer of people blocking other people out by focussing completely on their phone. "Now I don't have any dreams, or if I dream, I dream of dark geometric shapes drifting noiselessly across a pink, black and purple pixelated colorscape. Screen-saver dreams." Beautiful.
So this novel is at once very now, very current, but also filled with history. It is about people separately, trying to live their lives the best they can, and it is about Native people as a whole, as a group, a community trying to survive, trying to do honour to their forefathers. It gave me an insight into a culture and a people and a history I basically hadn't read about before, and it opened my mind in ways I didn't expect nor would ever wanted to have missed. So yes, read this novel. Especially if you know nothing about Native Americans. Or maybe especially if you think you do know.
