Sometimes, you read a book that makes you reevaluate your perspective entirely. These books take you outside of your every day and remind you of how diverse the human experience can be. Or, they connect you more firmly to some aspect of your identity. And sometimes, you run across the rare book – written by a rare author – that can do both.
There There by Tommy Orange was one such book for me. When I read it, I was a new transplant to the Bay Area, and I had not yet heard of the Occupation of Alcatraz. While I had a sense of what it meant to be Native in the US, I hadn’t engaged with the implications – of cultural and personal identity, of generational loss. Growing up desi, I’d always tried to distance myself from “the other Indians”. Reading There There highlighted similarities in our experiences while emphasizing the unique story of American Indians today. (It also inspired me to set up a regular donation to the Association on American Indian Affairs, which continues today.) And yet, I’ve only been able to bring myself to read it once… I’m almost scared that the second time will be less impactful.
So when I learned that Orange was writing another novel, I was thrilled – and slightly trepidatious. After all, There There left such a big mark – could another story have the same impact? This new novel, Wandering Stars, also involved the return of some of the most interesting characters from There There, directly inviting comparisons. But could it live up to all my literary hopes?
The mirrors of history
Orange used There There to profile a diaspora of American Indians – different ages, backgrounds, and so many different challenges. In Wandering Stars, he instead traces the history of the Red Feather family from the Sand Creek massacre to today. This allows him to direct the reader’s gaze backwards, to understand how we got to this state.
The first half of Wandering Stars traces the forefathers of the modern-day Red Feather family. We learn how generations of American Indians have been impacted by different eras of American policy, from Jude Star, a survivor of the Sand Creek massacre and imprisonment in St. Augustine, to his son Charles, forced to attend the Carlisle schools. We get to see, in detail, how American policies force the erasure of Indian culture – not just outlawing practices, but driving self-censorship and fear. We see how the pain and isolation drive each generation to self-medicate. And we see how strained relationships can get, even with those Americans who seem friendly. This pain is borne through generations, and it leaves cycles of isolation and addiction that feel impossible to break.
For readers familiar with There There, this family history casts the Red Feathers’ story in a totally different light. Jacquie and Opal Victoria’s connection with Alcatraz feels more poignant when you realize that their mother was adopted, was building her own connection to the Indian community. And then we see the echo of that longing, that isolation, in her grandsons Orvil and Lony. Orange uses this generational lens to show how the present reflects the past, that each generation’s pain is a mutation of the prior one. And so, even as there’s progress, there’s generational trauma at the root of it.
Freedom across generations
What themes, then, do these mirrors reflect? Orange explores family, culture, and addiction within each generation. He also touches on the migration of Native Americans, both voluntary and forced, and connects it all to freedom – or escape.
It’s a lot to cover in a few hundred pages. Orange tackles it by lacing parallel, painful interactions throughout each of the stories. Take family – Orange seems specifically interested in what it means to be raised “away from your culture”, and ensures that each generation of the Star / Red Feather family is separated from their roots in both time and education. Each time they try to reconnect to their community, there’s some kind of disaster, curtailing progress. Yet each story is also a hopeful one, as each generation makes it a little further in redefining their identity than the one before it.
Orange then ties the pain of this loneliness and isolation to the escape of addiction. Whether it’s alcohol or opiates, several generations of the family fall prey to devastating addictions. These addictions serve as a form of escape, numbing the cognitive dissonance associated with living in cultural isolation and denying yourself identity.
As a reader, it made me wish for some kind of systematic solution – exactly the kind of thinking that the novel demonstrates got us into this mess. It forces contemplation – on what it would take for a generation of American Indians to grow up rooted, confident, free. It’s easy to want a “happy” ending, but Orange forces you to sit with tenuous hope instead. Freedom from generational trauma, he seems to suggest, requires both honoring the past and moving with the present. Freedom, then, is to know and love oneself, rather than to force-fit yourself into an inherited identity. And only then, perhaps, can you come home.
Sit and think a while
I was hoping for a novel that made me think, and Wandering Stars delivers. Where There There builds and builds and builds until it explodes, Wandering Stars is a steady drumbeat across history. Where There There forces you to witness the interlinked pain of a generation, Wandering Stars explores its sources. There There establishes a problem; Wandering Stars root-causes it to postulate a resolution.
I will have to sit with this resolution a bit longer, process it and re-process it. But if there’s one message that comes through clearly, it is not my opinion that matters. This Thanksgiving, as we come together to celebrate all that we are grateful for, I will spend some time learning more about the Tequesta Indians who lived in my hometown. And when I return to the Bay, I will remember to honor the Ohlone who walked here before me.
Until next time, stay cozy, and stay curious!
This will count as “featuring indigenous culture” for my 52 Book Club challenge!
