There There by Tommy Orange

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER • A wondrous and shattering novel that 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. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. 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. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.

This book will stay in my heart and mind. The characters are so real that I was tearing up by the end as he tied all of their stories together. I know some have said it started slowly for them, but I was hooked from the beginning and was turning back to check stories to see the clever interconnections. What an impressive debut. He'll be in Durham this week and I'm very much looking forward to hearing him speak about his work.

This is the most powerful book I've read this year (and I've read some weighty stuff). The book weaves together narratives from different Natives in the Oakland area, from all perspectives – different ages, genders, and families – but also different literary perspectives, from the first person to second to third and in every tense imaginable. Orange is trying to get at this from every angle. He's making us look at every surface in every way; it's a true cubist manifesto, putting together these different pieces until the reader can see the full picture. And then see the picture shatter. (My heart is still reeling.)

Forget Hawthorne and Shakespeare and Orwell – this book should be required reading for all high school kids. Because rectifying what we teach elementary school kids about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims with historical accounts of the Trail of Tears and various massacres in high school textbooks isn't nearly enough. That still allows us to be so distant from the tragedy of this people; textbook images are “a copy of a copy of a photograph” – so far from the real thing. Distant, cold, impersonal. We can understand the tragedy logically and never come close to feeling it. Read this book and you'll feel it.

It's not historical fiction; it's set in the modern day. But at the same time it is a historical fiction, because each of the characters in this story carries the weight of the past, and feel doomed to continue carrying that weight because we refuse to acknowledge those histories, right the wrongs, and refuse to let the Native people fade into an ethnically ambiguous urbanity. Please – start by reading this book.

One sentence synopsis... Set in modern-day Oakland and alternating perspectives amongst a dozen Native and mixed race characters this novel builds tension through deeply personal stories until the climactic big Oakland powwow. .

Read it if you like... modern history and stories of identity like (the previously favorably reviewed) ‘The Great Believers'. .

Dream casting... Gil Birmingham as the devoted Bill Davis and Chaske Spencer as the loner Edwin Black.