{"id":20180834,"date":"2025-03-12T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.metrosiliconvalley.com\/?p=20180834"},"modified":"2025-03-11T23:01:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T06:01:02","slug":"author-tommy-orange-gives-voice-to-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metrosiliconvalley.com\/author-tommy-orange-gives-voice-to-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Tommy Orange Gives Voice to Past and Present"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been several years since Tommy Orange\u2019s hugely successful debut novel, the 2019 American Book Award winner There, There<\/em>, lit up the literary world and gave voice to a wide spectrum of Native American experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And since his sophomore book, Wandering Stars<\/em>, hit the stores last February, the Oakland author has become one of the most widely acclaimed writers of his generation, booking large event halls throughout his spring 2024 tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week he will be in Menlo Park for a visit to Kepler\u2019s. He\u2019ll discuss Wandering Stars<\/em> with poet Kaveh Akbar, whose Martyr!<\/em> was named one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of public speaking since the first tour. And so, that\u2019s not the part that makes me anxious,\u201d Orange said in a phone interview. \u201cIt\u2019s just the attention that can be a lot, and I think writers are pretty private people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wandering Stars<\/em>, the ambitious sequel to There, There<\/em>, takes on the painful history of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., which served as brutal reeducation sites for Native children for the better part of a century. Orange immerses himself in a work that is both haunting historical fiction and contemporary literary prowess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the novel, the family lineage of Orvil Red Feather\u2014a central character in There, There<\/em>\u2014collides and entwines with the shameful legacy of the Carlisle Indian School, telling 160 years of history through the lives of Red Feather\u2019s ancestors, from the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 to present-day Oakland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Josu\u00e9 Monroy: In a 2018 interview, you said that you wrote <\/strong>There, There<\/em><\/strong> out of a place of loneliness, out of a lack of representation for the range of Native voices. What place were you in when you began work on <\/strong>Wandering Stars<\/em><\/strong>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tommy Orange:<\/strong> I actually started in March of 2018. I just got excited about just doing a sequel and kind of staying in the world of There, There<\/em>. The metaphor of the aftermath of the shooting seemed like a really layered and textured, deep metaphor for the way history plays on the present. And so, Orvil kind of, like, recovering from a shooting at a powwow, it just felt like there were a lot of layers to it. So I got excited about starting to write into that and was also very wary of doing a sequel because you\u2019re almost dooming yourself to writing a less-good book. And for your sophomore effort, that\u2019s the thing you really don\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it was kind of a weird decision on my part, but I still was in a similar place when I started writing. And then after two years of writing it, the pandemic happened. I\u2019ve been in a lot of different head spaces during the writing of Wandering Stars<\/em>. And part of that was not being lonely. [Now] we\u2019ve got two TV shows put out representation-wise, and a lot of Native books have been published since then. And I probably feel a lot less lonely representation-wise and got to see a lot of Native people react, including a ton of non-Native people. But a lot of Native people across the country reacted to the book in really positive ways. So that was good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did the pandemic\u2019s isolation help you in your process?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. It was a very distracting time. I sort of lost a lot of structure and routine, which I like to have. You know, not being sure how long this thing\u2019s gonna last. If this was the beginning of some kind of end of the world. That was not conducive for me being in a good writing space. I think a lot of people put out really big books right after that time period. So, some people were really able to take advantage of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve said before that contemporary depictions of Native Americans relegate them to the historical. How does <\/strong>Wandering Stars<\/em><\/strong> explore the generational trauma of Native American boarding schools to inform the book\u2019s characters in the present?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think a lot of the time we have only been depicted historically, and a lot of times it\u2019s a 400-year-old history. It\u2019s, like, related to the pilgrims or it\u2019s \u201cCowboys and Indians.\u201d I think a lot of times we get authenticated from the outside and people kind of look at us as not being Native enough, or not the Native that they had in mind. And it [brings out] a lot of the burden of [questions like] \u2018Where\u2019s our language?\u2019 and \u2018Where\u2019s our connection to culture?\u2019 especially for urban folks who have a complicated history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The burden kind of gets put on us like there\u2019s some kind of weakness. And a lot of people don\u2019t know that in these boarding schools we were being punished for practicing our lifeways and our languages. And these boarding schools went on for decades, probably 100 years, with the same mentality of \u2018Kill the Indian, save the man,\u2019 and so a lot of people\u2019s connection to their culture, their tribal ways, was cut off intentionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, portraying the historical piece and then having the contemporary characters kind of struggling with \u2018What does it mean to be native?\u2019 it just kind of shows that the fact that we still are connected at all is a lot. It\u2019s trying to show our strength rather than something that we lack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of this book takes place in Oklahoma, a place you have a personal connection with. What was the significance of that while writing this book?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up going back to Oklahoma\u2014that\u2019s where my tribe is and my family that lived there\u2014but it was more the historical piece because that\u2019s where people went after Fort Marion and that\u2019s where my tribe was. That\u2019s where our reservation, our tribal jurisdiction land, is. It had more to do with this historical piece. And I did a lot of research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a complicated thing. Some people have tribal homelands\u2026they\u2019ve been on a piece of land for hundreds\u2014some maybe even longer than that\u2014years, being relegated to this piece of land by the government, and not really being allowed off of it for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not the same feeling, like, \u2018that is home.\u2019 We were in different parts of the country before that, getting moved around, and the Sand Creek Massacre and all that stuff. So I have mixed feelings about the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does it feel to be a part of a contemporary Oakland literary community?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish there were more prominent Oakland authors and I hope that there will be more in the future. \u2026 For the amount of books that come out of New York, it\u2019s really nothing, a drop in the bucket. So, I think the West Coast gets a lot less love in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your work gives life to an array of Native experiences and you have garnered wide acclaim for the depth of your depictions. On the flipside, do you ever feel tokenized in an industry that tends to fetishize \u201cother\u201d narratives?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, and I think sometimes people \u2026 I\u2019m like, the only Native author that they know and I\u2019ll get questions that I\u2019m supposed to be able to answer for the entire community and it\u2019s really not something that I can do. We\u2019re almost 574 federally recognized tribes, and there\u2019s like 400 not federally recognized tribes, and everyone has their own worldview and histories. So there\u2019s a lot of diversity that makes it impossible for me to speak for. I do feel put on the spot sometimes to answer from that point of view, but I don\u2019t know that I necessarily feel tokenized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tommy Orange will be in conversation with poet Kaveh Akbar at 7pm on Mar 17 at Kepler\u2019s Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park. <\/em>Tickets: $11\u2013$46<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author of \u2018Wandering Stars\u2019 will appear at Kepler\u2019s Books in Menlo Park on Monday, in conversation with poet Kaveh Akbar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14789,"featured_media":20180836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[1865,1469],"tags":[15632,4040],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n