Orange’s first novel, published in 2018, offers a group portrait of Native American life in Oakland through the lens of a dozen characters, including an aspiring filmmaker, an overweight shut-in, and a young man mourning his brother, with whom he still communicates (or tries to) by email. The book is remarkable first, perhaps, for its voices; Orange is masterful in his ability to construct complex, nuanced people and situations out of language and points of view. More exceptional, however, is the way he pulls his contrapuntal narrative together—it builds to a culminating event called the Big Oakland Powwow—interweaving the voices and the experiences of his characters as they move to a blistering denouement.
‘There There’
Tommy Orange’s novel is the California Book Club’s November 2021 selection.
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