Get over what? The mountain that is history?”

We still hear them saying: ‘just get over it already,’ even when they’re saying they know the feeling is there. With his head buried in his notes, he intoned, “As Native people we have a bad history with schools, with institutions. It read: “The students of today are the warriors of tomorrow.” Behind him, a banner congratulated this year’s graduating class of East Bay Native American high school seniors. “There There” refers to a much-debated passage in Gertrude Stein’s Everybody’s Biography, in which she wrote, upon visiting the site of her childhood home in Oakland and finding it different than she remembered: “There is no there there.On a June afternoon, Tommy Orange, author of There There, one of this summer’s breakout books, stood at the foot of the stage at the Fellowship of Humanity, a lavender-interiored church on 27 th Street in Oakland, California.

I think first discussing the meaning of the tile will give you just about everything you need to know about this debut novel by Tommy Orange. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary, and truly unforgettable. 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.

Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Tommy Orange’s wondrous and shattering novel 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. He was born and raised in Oakland, California, and currently lives in Angels Camp, California.Ĭonnect with Tommy on Twitter. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He is a 2014 MacDowell Fellow, and a 2016 Writing by Writers Fellow. Tommy Orange is a recent graduate from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

There there author