There There (Tommy Orange)

There There
Tommy Orange
Knopf
Fiction, General Fiction
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Despite what popular media likes to show, Native Americans exist in places beyond the "rez", in suburbs and cities. Here, as everwhere, the scars of historic and ongoing mistreatment and prejudices linger and fester, and even as they reach for a connection and a future, too often it's snatched away. The city of Oakland is one such place, where Natives have gathered and been pushed into the cracks. From a young man branded by his mother's alcohol abuse to a woman fleeing an abusive relationship, from an aging ex-con to a boy trying to connect with something greater than himself, even to the lens of a would-be filmmmaker trying to document lives the world seems bound and determined to not see, numerous Native stories weave through the city's streets. At the coming Big Oakland Powwow, lives and generations will come together - and a terrible tragedy will play out.

REVIEW: If the description seems a bit vague, it's because this story is more a collection of stories and lives than a single cohesive arc. Orange jumps from character to character, often with tangential relations to each other that become apparent to the reader (if often not the people) as their tales unfurl. Nobody here is happy or thriving, but the back-breaking weights of history and living in a dominant culture that's still bound and determined to stuff Natives into ever-smaller boxes for ultimate disposal stack the odds against happiness or thriving for everyone here. Abuse, from alcohol to harder stuff (and from emotional to physical and worse), runs rampant, unhealthy coping mechanisms at best but about the only relief some can find. With the powwow, the characters try to recreate lost connections and save fading cultural values and memories, but even in these places nobody is safe from the tragedies all around them.
While the various lives examined show different aspects of modern urban Native American life with an insider's nuance and insight, sometimes the stories feel meandering and tangled. What ultimately cost it a half-star was the climax and ending, which felt rushed and incomplete; I almost wondered if the audiobook I listened to had been abridged, especially given how much time and attention went into setting everything up and putting every character into position for the violence at the end. But apparently it does just end like that, almost mid-thought, with no wrapup or examination of the fallout. That aside, it's a solid, often harrowing portrayal of lives and cultures too many have learned not to care about and pain too many have learned not to see.

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