Wandering Stars: A Novel

"Wandering Stars" first takes a step back a hundred years to place the characters ancestors at the Sand Creek Massacre and Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The book opens with brutal recounting of not only death but the mutilation and bloodsport that Native Americans were subject to by settlers and the enormous price they paid for the violence and trauma they experienced. It's rough reading. The book spends the first half leading up to the current day which is the months after the PowWow shooting massacre and its after effects on the survivors and families. It's a little tricky to follow the plot lines to the current day but they do connect and the goal of giving context and background to how rootless and lost the current generation of more urban Native Americans are is well achieved. Ultimately we want to know what happened. Sisters Jacqui (biological grandmother) and Opal Viola (adopted grandmother) of Orvil, Loother and Lony move in together. There are characters now addicted to drugs and alcohol. Others fighting to stay sober and everyone trying to find there way economically and socially. It's quite a setting. Tommy Orange writes beautifully and with urgency. I wanted to keep reading. Through the suffering there is hope and optimism that reflects the goodness of his characters more than any underlying improvement in the American treatment and recognition of the Native American plight. Well worth reading.

The second half of the book is completely different than the first so if you don't find it compelling at first, keep reading, it's worth it. The first part is going back in time to tell the story of a few native americans (ancestors of the main characters) who survived a massacre and their struggles during the turn of the century to have a meaningful life in the white man's world. Lots of interesting history but told in a dry sort of convoluted way where I was often unsure what exactly was happening. The second half follows the current day characters from There There, the Redfeather brothers. It's beautifully written, almost poetic. Told from 3 brother's viewpoints, their native american perspective living in current day Oakland. Stuggles with addiction, identity, and family. Loved it.

What happened after the shooting at the powwow in There There? Well, you have to slog through 1/3 of Wandering Stars to find out. The first 80 pages recount the mainstreaming of natives after the Sand Creek Massacre, told through the lives of survivors and their descendants, beginning in 1864. It's a bummer of a read because we don't stay with each character long enough to connect with them. Instead we get pages and pages of white men violently deracinating each successive generation of the Star and Bear Shield families. They are left disenfranchised and identity-less, unequipped to deal with racist western civilization. All this occurs with an anvil-to-the-skull level of subtlety, and with none of the humor that made There There such a good book. Orange is terrific with contemporary scenes and dialog. Period fiction, not so much. After that miserable history we finally get back to modern Oakland and pick up with Orvil and Jacquie Red Feather. Orvil becomes a teenage addict after he was shot; Jacquie's a recovering addict. In fact, the remaining 2/3 of the book focuses on folks getting high and then dealing with or succumbing to addiction. It doesn't make for enjoyable reading. There's a lot of circular, repetitive prose in this book. Example: "But the idea of it is impossible to shake, because if you’ve felt it before, to have touched the bliss of oblivion is to have already gone too far past yourself, past self-interest, into that othered beyond where all that matters is dutifully obeying the need for the need like an itch that’s impossible to not scratch but also impossible to scratch enough to fulfill what the itch is asking for." The writing is different and challenging, but the cleverness gets tiresome. It's easy to like and connect with Orvil and his little brothers, Lony and Loother. Orange depicts family dynamics expertly. The relationships between the boys and their grandma and grandaunt are the bright spots of the book, and make it worth reading. There are parts that are genuinely funny. It's interesting how deftly Orange can jump back and forth between first and third person in the telling. But readers who tune in for a sequel to There There will be disappointed by a book that's pretty low on action and populated by depressed drug addicts. It's a tragic community that's constantly despairing over the loss of its native identity at the merciless hands of white America. The book isn't exactly outright contemptuous of white people, but it's noticeable that there are no sympathetic or appealing white characters. Orange's was a new, distinct voice in his debut novel. He's still got it in Wandering Stars, but the second time out the story is a lot less compelling.

Awesome read!!!!

I love Tommy Orange's prose and his insights into the characters, yet I could not read this novel steadily, as I did with There There. The story is extremely painful, and some of the interludes did not hold my attention. The tale of intergenerational trauma was well told, and the interior monologues of Orvil, Lony, and Loother were sad, funny, and captivating at the same time. Yet, I felt that the author blew by some of the earlier characters without fully developing them. Perhaps a more aggressive editor could have shaped the book better. Still, I look forward to his next work, even though I did not feel that this one compared favorably to There There. (I did appreciate the genealogy chart, because I had to refer to it several times.)

I had to get to the end before I fully appreciated the anguish-drenched chapters chronicling the systematic cultural spoliation of our Native peoples. There is redemption here in the form of hard-earned self-understanding. There is no flimsy romanticizing in Tommy Orange’s novel, only the hard, obdurate persistence to follow the wandering Star clan until they reveal that they are the real and only humanity, and thus nothing less than a mirror in which readers can see themselves.

I read this on my kindle first. It is so good I ordered the hardback edition (from Louise Erdrich's bookstore Birch Bark) because I have to hold it and keep it and read it again. This book, like There, There is a example of what Franz Kafka was talking about when he said "The book must be the axe that breaks the frozen soul within us." I read There, There twice and now, after finishing Wandering Stars, I'm headed back to read it again, so I can read Wandering Stars again. Too beautifully painfully hopeful for words. What a talent. I hope he becomes a prolific writer. I see major prizes in his future (Pulitzer, Nobel, etc.).

I enjoyed the book until hitting the half way point. That was when I figured out that the book was really about the addiction suffered by generations of Native Americans rather than the other obstacles that they endured as well. And what about the wonderful parts of their heritage? A more rounded look at what life was like for them would have been a more pleasurable read. But I was dreaming of a story like Dances With Wolves. My all time favorite book and movie. Showing the hardships they faced but balancing it out with the strength, love for family and tradition. I want to believe that there was happiness and contentment in their lives. Anyway there is two passages that I hope I never forget. One of them being “…you didn't have to worry about a group worrying about it’s believability, it’s sects, or dogmas, or anything else required of a group deciding together on what it all ultimately means. I know there isn’t a way to know and that the need to know comes from wanting control, which is so much what addiction is about, control.”

Tommy did it again... I sobbed and sobbed. Not as good as the first book but I was definitely ready to see what happened after the Pow Wow. I am part native and I grew up not in my culture, I don't have a connection to my nation especially now I live in Australia, I made it a point to start reading more indigenous authors, and I swear reading Tommy Orange's books even though it is not about people from my tribe, I felt the connection from the stories my mother passed from my grandfather and his family similar stories.

Reading this book was like being repeatedly punched in the stomach, yet I could not put it down, and I felt all the stories reverberate in my soul. Thank you for your courage in living and telling us these stories.

This was the first of the Booker price Long list 2024 that I read The novel tells the story of the of the native American population of the USA from the late 1800s where children are taken away from their parents and sent to boarding schools through to the present time. At the start of the novel, the author has a rather naive child like writing style ,this reads a bit like the person writing the story the native Americans were actually writing it and were barely literate it wasn’t until I read further sections where the narrator were different that I realise that this was entirely a device used by the author to give their characters voice. The novel does tend to concentrate on drug and alcohol abuse in traumatised populations andI felt a bit conflicted reading this. Drug abuse and addiction is not only a problem in the Native American population. I know it’s not but this novel feels like it is that it makes it feel like it is and I felt rather preached to at times This review will appear on Goodreads, and my book blog bionicSarahsbooks.wordpress.com It will also appear on Amazon UK.

Tommy Orange, „Wandering Stars“ USA/UK 2024 Nach seinem Erstling “There There“ (deutsch „Dort Dort“) ist „Wandering Stars“ der zweite Roman des Cheyenne-Indianers Tommy Orange, und – wer hätte das gedacht – er setzt sich erneut damit auseinander, was es bedeutet, Indianer zu sein in einer Welt, die einen eigentlich für ausgerottet hält. Die beiden Romane sind eng miteinander verknüpft, aber es handelt sich nicht um eine simple Fortsetzung, im Gegenteil. Erst in „Wandering Stars“ greift Orange zurück an den Ursprung seiner Geschichte, das Sand Creek Massaker von 1864, bei dem rund 150 Frauen, Kinder und Alte der Cheyennes und Arapahos von US-Soldaten getötet wurden. Überlebende wurden als Kriegsgefangene nach Fort Marion in Florida gebracht, der Urvater von Oranges Familiengeschichte, Jude Star, und dessen Freund Victor Bear Shield sind auch darunter. Unter der Regie des naiv wohlwollenden Indianer-Umerziehers Richard Henry Pratt (1840-1924) sollen sie in dem sternförmigen Fort zu zivilisierten Amerikanern werden, ihnen werden die Haare abgeschnitten, die Kleider weggenommen, Sprache und Kultur verboten, soweit sie nicht zur Sensation für weiße Besucher dienen, sie bekommen Bibel- und Englisch-Unterricht und zivilisierte neue Namen. Jude Star entnimmt seinen dem Judas-Brief aus der Bibel, Victor Bear Shield wählt seinen Vornamen aus Mary Shelleys „Frankenstein“-Roman. Die Familien von Jude Star und Victor Bear Shield werden später miteinander verbunden, indem Victors Tochter Opal und Judes Sohn Charles miteinander leben wollen und ein Kind zeugen – das Leben wird ihnen verwehrt, aber das Kind Victoria Bear Shield (= Vicky), dessen Mutter Opal bei der Geburt stirbt, wächst in einer weißen Familie auf und erfährt spät, dass sie eine Cheyenne ist. Auch Vickys Leben verläuft alles andere als geradlinig, sie bekommt zwei Töchter von verschiedenen Männern, bevor sie an Krebs stirbt, und die Mädchen Jacquie Red Feather und Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield tun alles, um ihr Leben in „normale“ Bahnen zu lenken. Opal gelingt das einigermaßen, Jacquie bringt von einem Unbekannten eine Tochter zur Welt, die sich drogensüchtig erschießt, nachdem sie selbst Mutter dreier Söhne geworden ist, die anschließend bei ihrer Großtante Opal aufwachsen – Jacquie ist nach dem Selbstmord ihrer Tochter jahrelang alkoholkrank. Die drei Jungs kamen bereits heroinkrank zur Welt. Die Kurzzusammenfassung lässt schon erkennen, dass es sich bei allen Personen um immer wieder abbrechende, scheiternde und unrealisierbare Lebensentwürfe handelt. Sie alle leiden unbewusst am Verlust ihrer indianischen Identität, die ihnen Halt gegeben und sie mit ihren Vorfahren und der Erde verbunden hätte. Endet der Roman „There There“, in dem Indianer keinen Ort haben, mit einem Desaster bei dem Versuch, einen neuen Ort einzurichten - so haben in „Wandering Stars“ Jacquies Enkelsöhne zuletzt doch eine Ahnung, wohin sie gehören, dass es in ihnen selbst Möglichkeiten gibt, ihre Herkunft, ihre tiefen Bindungen wieder zu finden. „Wandering Stars“ endet mit einer leisen, intensiven Hoffnung – der deutsche Titel „Verlorene Sterne“ ist ganz unangemessen, auch einige subtile Verbindungen und vor allem der lockere Erzählton gehen in der Übersetzung verloren. Die Symbolik der „Sterne“ blitzt in verschiedensten Zusammenhängen auf – sie beginnt mit dem Namen von Urvater Jude Star und dem sternförmigen Fort Marion, und sie endet nicht mit dem sternförmigen Schrapnell, das nach der Powwow-Schießerei von „There There“ in Orvils Körper herumwandert. Wandernde Sterne sind auch die Figuren selbst, die sich nach abbrechenden Lebensbahnen neu finden müssen. Tommy Orange hat einen Roman in leicht lesbarer Alltagssprache geschrieben, der es aber in sich hat, was die Erzählstruktur betrifft. Die verläuft keineswegs geradlinig, sondern in kompliziert miteinander verbundenen Vorgriffen und Nachblicken und stets wechselnden Perspektiven. Oft weiß man zu Beginn eines Kapitels nicht, von wem die Rede ist, und der abenteuerlichste innere Monolog ist der von Opal Viola Bear Shield, die mit ihrem ungeborenen Kind spricht, während sie dessen Vater, den toten Charles, auf einem Pferd abtransportiert, um ihn draußen in der Natur nach Cheyenne-Sitte in Tücher gewickelt hoch oben auf einem Baum zu bestatten. Trotz der Bizarrerie dieser Situation ist Oranges Sprache hier von tiefer poetischer Kraft, ähnlich wie später der ungewöhnliche, halb innere, halb von außen kommende Monolog der an Krebs sterbenden Vicky. Das Bewusstsein von Sterbenden erfährt bei Orange eine sprachliche Durchdringung, als sei es erst das Sterben, das Indianer zu sich selbst brächte; das ließ sich schon in „There There“ wahrnehmen, wo am Ende so viel Blut fließt. Aber das Ende von „Wandering Stars“ zielt darauf ab, das Sterben, das Abbrechen der Lebensentwürfe als Durchgang zu einer neuen Identität der Lebenden zu erfahren. Ein schönes, komplexes, schwieriges Buch. Mal so Drüberlesen genügt nicht.

There There was one of my favourite books and I really wanted to enjoy Wandering Stars, but somehow the magic was missing in this one. I’m still looking forward to his next offering, though.