- The Good: Exploration of modern, urban native identity, woven together with historical narratives
- The Bad: Depressingly deep dive into identity, poverty, substance abuse, and generational trauma
- The Literary: PEN/Hemingway Award, John Leonard Prize, American Book Award, New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year
Spanning several families across generations, Wandering Stars takes place during the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, in the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and through present day school shootings, self-mutilation, and the opioid crisis.
The present day storyline is the most well drawn. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield and her nephews Orvil and Lony struggle to comprehend the senseless violence of a shooting. Just when Orvil decides he’s ready to make a connection with his Native American heritage and attend a powwow for the first time, he’s caught in the cross-fire of a shooting at the powwow. When he wakes up in the hospital, he finds himself compulsively googling school shooting videos. As he physically recovers, he takes increasing doses of prescription pain pills to feel normal.
Lony, Orvil’s younger, sensitive brother, reads that the tribe performed blood rituals during his own research about their Cheyenne heritage. And after witnessing Orvil get shot, Lony finds relief and comfort in secretly cutting himself, which he rationalizes as a way to better understand his tribe. Loni and Orvil’s aunt Opal Viola struggles to help her nephews, but she’s equally adrift, experimenting with peyote as a way to understand her family.
The other two historical timelines aren’t as emotionally impactful to me, although I’m not sure why. They certainly shed light on relatively recent atrocities against Native Americans, and provide a throughline for the unmoored feeling of being native after generations of trauma. I think the characters don’t hit quite like Orvil and Lony. But in summary, in 1864 Colorado, Star, a young survivor of a massacre, is brought to a prison, where he’s forced to learn English and practice Christianity. His jailer, Richard Henry Pratt, will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School institutions, which aim to “kill the Indian to save the man.” A generation later, Star’s son Charles attends the Carlisle Indian school in Pennsylvania, where he’s brutalized by Pratt’s own son. Tying the storylines together, Charles and Opal Viola become friends, envisioning a better future away from institutional violence.
Absolutely brutal, piercing, full of sorrow and rage. One of the most important lessons that Tommy Orange teaches me is that because of our history, every native person today feels like they’re “not Indian enough”. Pop culture has taught us that the only real Native Americans are living at one with nature, wearing loincloths, and shooting bows and arrows. Together, we can broaden our view of what it means to be a modern native, embracing each other whether we come from rural or urban areas, broken or adopted families, whether we attend powwows regularly or have only read about our tribes in books.
Wandering Stars is Tommy Orange’s second book, and I’m so happy they are both getting such high praise and attention. They’re difficult to read, and I can’t imagine how hard they are to write. Wado, Tommy.