THERE THERE By Tommy Orange

 THERE THERE
by
Tommy Orange

    There There is the debut novel by Tommy Orange, winning the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the American Book Award. It was also shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist.

    The book is centered around Oakland, California. It follows twelve different Native American characters and culminates in the Big Oakland Powwow.

    I have mixed feelings about There There. Much of the time, I did not like the book. It seemed to me to be a literary fiction wanna be. I found the ending to be predictable, and when I reached the end of the book, it felt abrupt and not well wrapped up. There were so many characters that I had difficulty keeping track of them, although this may have been exacerbated by the fact that I was listening to the audiobook.

    On the other hand, there were some interesting and thought-provoking parts: for example, when grandkids who were being raised by their grandmother wondered what made the grandmother an Indian; what was it about her that others who met her knew that? Also, Orange did a good job portraying the plight of the modern, urban Native American. Hence, it was even more poignant when it was evinced that the modern day plight, as depicted in culminating events, was carried out by the modern, urban Native American.