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Tommy Orange was in Sweden, promoting a translated version of his first book, There There. While there, he experienced a surge of creativity for a second novel. Orange’s debut work was released in 2018 to great praise, earning a spot on Barack Obama’s book recommendations, being named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and winning the American Book Award. The expectations to match his initial success must have been daunting. However, during a trip to a Swedish museum, Orange stumbled upon a newspaper clipping stating that his Native American tribe had resided in Florida in 1875. Having knowledge of his tribe’s history, Orange knew this to be inaccurate.

However, this was not the case. Orange, who was born in Oakland, California in 1982, is a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. He learned that members of his tribe were incarcerated in a Florida jail, which later served as a model for the infamous “boarding schools” that aimed to forcibly assimilate Native children into white society.

The prison featured in Orange’s second novel, Wandering Stars, as a young man awakens to find his recurring nightmares have become a harsh reality. In order to survive, he must flee from a massacre. After living on the road for several years without a permanent home, he and his exhausted companions willingly surrender, hoping for food and shelter. However, they are instead imprisoned and sent far away to a fortress jail. Over the course of three years, they are stripped of their individuality, forced to adopt a new language and religion, and occasionally displayed as a form of entertainment for the locals, a combination of conquest and voyeurism.

The description of a brutal and disturbing event is based on the mistreatment of the southern Cheyenne people at Sand Creek in Colorado in 1864. However, the reference to the aftermath of the massacre – the imprisonment of Cheyenne people in Florida by military officer Richard Henry Pratt – was influenced by a visit to a museum.

During a Zoom call from his home in Oakland, California, Orange explains how the man in charge believed that providing military training and teaching prisoners Christianity and English was very effective. This led him to decide that it would also be a good idea to do the same to all Native children in the country and establish boarding schools in various locations. Orange acknowledges that it was a cruel and illogical leap to treat children the same way as prisoners of war, but during those times, it seemed like a viable option. Despite this, Orange wanted to write about it because his own tribe was affected by it. He shares a chilling realization that, compared to others at the time, the man in charge was not the worst as he was trying to find a way to ensure the survival of the Native people, who were facing similar atrocities to that of a genocide.

The resulting book is a collection of stories that reveals the origins and consequences of intergenerational trauma. The second part, named “Aftermath,” focuses on the fate of those affected by the events at Sand Creek and their subsequent incarceration. This section takes the reader to 2018 and follows the descendants of these individuals. Some of these characters may be recognizable to those who have read There There, such as the young Orvil Red Feather and his family who were caught in a shooting at the Big Oakland Powwow. In the previous book, Orvil’s survival was uncertain, but now we see his struggle to move on with his life.

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The book “Wandering Stars” is dedicated to those who have faced and continue to face addiction. It delves into the intricate relationship between past and present pain and the use of substances as a means of escape. Author Orange shares that this subject hits close to home, as his own family has experienced addiction. He wanted to shed light on the complexity of addiction and provide readers with an understanding of why people may turn to substances. There are often stereotypes surrounding Native people and alcohol, but Orange challenges these by exploring the underlying reasons why individuals may turn to substances for relief from their pain.

The author elaborates that his family members have struggled with alcoholism, and though he has not gone to the same extremes, he too has faced challenges with substance abuse. However, in both his novel and conversations, he recognizes the danger of oversimplifying addiction: “Drugs are often viewed as a means of escapism and numbness from an outside perspective. But for individuals who have experienced trauma, they may have already been numb in their body since childhood, especially if there was trauma during their early years. The substance then allows them to actually feel something.”

Orvil Red Feather, who develops a dependence on painkillers, contemplates the positive effects they have on him. He explains that they allow him to experience emotions that he had previously suppressed, such as courage and assurance. However, he also longs for a return to his pre-injury life, even though it may not have been ideal.

Orange’s portrayal of the Native American community focuses on suppressing emotions and depicting the realities of life in urban areas. This is relevant as majority of Native Americans have been residing in cities for the last two decades, engaging in common city activities such as working in offices, taking public transportation, driving cars, using cell phones, and participating in online communities. However, these aspects of their lives are often overlooked in literature. In his novel, “Wandering Stars,” Orange takes the reader back to Oakland, emphasizing the experience of contemporary individuals, specifically young people, who are constantly present in the city but often absent in literature.

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Range currently resides in the city with his wife, Kateri, and their son, Felix. As the child of a Caucasian mother and a Native American father, he is officially recognized as a member of both the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes in Oklahoma, his father’s home state which he often visited during his youth. Writing was not his initial passion as he was heavily involved in roller hockey and even competed at a national level from ages 14 to 24. After earning a degree in sound arts, he held various roles at a major nonprofit organization for Native Americans in Oakland. He also worked at Gray Wolf Books, a used bookstore on the outskirts of the city, which played a significant role in jumpstarting his writing career.

During his time at the non-profit, he facilitated workshops that focused on storytelling for three days. These workshops involved participants sharing their experiences in a casual setting, then transforming them into scripts and short films. For Orange, it was a valuable learning experience as he noticed that the stories often lost their impact when written down. He would then help participants tap into their natural storytelling abilities by guiding them back to the story they originally shared in the informal setting, as he found it to be the strongest version. Often, when participants attempted to write it down, the story would lose its essence or become too vague.

It was at this location where Orange started drafting his debut novel – using a title inspired by Gertrude Stein’s remark about Oakland, the city she grew up in, stating “there was no there there”. Eventually, he began sharing snippets of the novel with various groups. During this time, he was also extensively reading, though when asked if he dove into the American literary canon and authors such as Herman Melville and Mark Twain like some of the 19th-century characters in his book “Wandering Stars”, he chuckles. He explains that he simply gave his characters books that would have been accessible during that era, and admits, “Honestly, I’m not a big fan of the classics.”

Rather than focusing on his own writing, he began to appreciate literature in translation, including works by acclaimed authors like Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Clarice Lispector, Andrei Platonov, and Robert Walser. Although he did not initially explore Native literature, he now praises the work of writers such as Louise Erdrich and Terese Mailhot. He cautiously welcomes the growing recognition of Native writers, artists, and performers in various cultural circles, citing the recent Oscar nomination of Lily Gladstone for her role in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” He hopes that the continued success and visibility of Native creators will encourage more industries to support their projects.

The speaker explains that they are a group of individuals who have never seen people like themselves represented in positive roles, which has limited their ability to dream about their own potential. With more Native actors and successful writers gaining visibility, there is potential for a positive shift to occur, providing inspiration for future generations to thrive and grow.

He has been cautious in achieving his own success, being careful not to speak for all Native Americans. He strongly identifies with Oakland and the Cheyenne people, as that is where he comes from and his personal experience. He acknowledges that there are shared experiences and values among Native people, particularly in their rejection of colonialism. He recognizes that while they are not all the same, there is still a sense of connection and unity that should be maintained and nurtured without reducing them to a single identity.

I am curious about Orange’s future plans. Will he revisit the characters from There There and Wandering Stars? He mentions that he will not sign a formal agreement to not write about them again, but after 12 years of focusing on them, he feels ready to move on: “However, if I run out of ideas in the future and need something to write about, they will always be there.”

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He is currently working diligently on his third novel, which he has described as having a lighter tone. Additionally, he has written an original screenplay. In his role as a composer, he has also created four instrumental pieces that will be featured on a Spotify playlist, showing what character Orvil Red Feather may be listening to as he navigates through a challenging and at times hostile environment. Apart from being a novel, There There is also set to be adapted into a television show, currently in the pre-production phase. It remains to be seen how far the show will progress, but it presents a fantastic opportunity for representation in front of and behind the camera. It is possible that while Orange may be moving on from his first two novels, they may still have a lasting impact on him.

Source: theguardian.com