Wandering Stars
by Tommy Orange
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There ("Pure soaring beauty." The New York Times Book Review) delivers a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.
"For the sake of knowing, of understanding, Wandering Stars blew my heart into a thousand pieces and put it all back together again. This is a masterwork that will not be forgotten, a masterwork that will forever be part of you." --Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star's son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father's jailer. Under Pratt's harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.
In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There--warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts--asking what it means to be the children and grandchildren of massacre. Wandering Stars is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange's monumental gifts.
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Book Details
- ISBN
- 9780593318256
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Authors
- Tommy Orange
- Publisher
- Knopf Publishing Group
- Published Date
- February 27, 2024
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 336
- Physical Info
- 1.5 in H x 8.4 in L x 5.5 in W (1.1 lb)
Tommy orange is an amazing author, his works really spoke to my teenager so much so he went to see him speak live, recommend his work 100%
Be patient - this book will connect you to suffering, addiction, family longing, and generational trauma and you will see yourself in some aspect of this powerful book.
The relationship of Long and Olvid was quite striking as both searched for a place they could be accepted, a place they belonged. Their struggle against addiction was brutally honest, but the recovery was a long hard road like the one their once ancestors traveled.
I really wanted to like this book. Tommy Orange is an important voice in American literature and I did like his previous book, There There, a lot. He seems to like puns. Wandering Stars, like There There, deals with serious issues around Native American identity, the abysmal history of the European conquest of North America and the subsequent treatment of the indigenous population. But it never coalesces into an actual story. It’s warp without the weft. There are a few intriguing characters but just as we get to know them the writer moves on. Mostly it’s just tedious. This is a horrible thing to say, but it reads like a book that was written out of duty (perhaps to fulfill a contractual obligation) rather than inspiration. With some good editing and a lot of reworking it might have been whipped into shape but there was neither time nor inclination. I am gobsmacked that it was long listed for the Booker. I confess I bailed about two thirds of the way through. I hate doing that but life is too short.
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.
