The follow-up to 2018's critically acclaimed There There, Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars picks up where that novel left off and acts as both a sequel and prequel to its predecessor. It follows the Red Feather/Bear Shield family after the events at the powwow, while also filling in their backstory going back generations to the nineteenth century Native American genocide at the hands of the US government. However, it is not necessary to have read There There in order to follow the events of Wandering Stars; this novel functions well as a standalone read too.

This is a hard-hitting, unflinching look at the history of a people who have suffered violence, oppression, forced displacement and cultural erasure for as lomg as they have been in contact with white settlers, and Orange weaves the lives of a fictional family around real events in order to show the reader how the indigenous tribes of North America continue to suffer the effects of white supremacist policies dating back hundreds of years. The legacy of trauma is a theme which runs throughout, as we see how generations of the Star/Bear Shield/Red Feather suffer racism, social isolation, poverty and addiction; the addiction motif is particularly arresting, with each generation turning to whatever substance was available at the time to cope with their pain, whether physical or psychological. Over 100 years may have passed between Star fleeing the Sand Creek Massacre and Orvil being shot at the powwow, but the notion of manifest destiny is still reverberating through history, even as Native heritage is fetishised, appropriated and laughably considered by some to be an ideal trump card to play to gain advantage in the college application process and the world of work.

The pairing of real historical events with characters who could have experienced them gives the reader an insight into what happened far deeper and more impactful than any textbook: the American-Indian 'war'; the boarding schools Native youth were corralled into in order to force their assimilation into white society and thus eliminate the risk of future rebellions; the occupation of Alcatraz Island by the Indians of All Tribes coalition. Interestingly, Orange inserts the real historical figure Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the flagship boarding school Carlisle Indian Industrial School and coiner of the infamous slogan, 'Kill the Indian, save the man,' into the narrative, forcing him to look back and reflect on the harm his supposedly good intentions inflicted.

The earlier parts of the story are certainly compelling and moving, but I found the narrators harder to connect with because- for the most part - they are recollecting events at a distance of many years and recalling how they felt rather than experiencing what happened in real time and showing their in the moment reactions. This more detached style made it harder for me to buy into the characters as they felt quite transient in the larger story. In contrast, the more recent storylines feel more intimate, complete with bleak, visceral descriptions of addiction, and the characters feel more knowable.

Wandering Stars has many inextricably linked themes - legacy and inheritance; betrayal; identity and disconnection - but a more subtle thread that runs throughout is about the importance of stories being told in their own voices. Orange, an enrolled member of both Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma, uses his characters' experiences to make a point about the importance of his own work, and that of other indigenous writers. Multiple characters struggle find literature and film which they can identify with, while Jude's muteness is a powerful metaphor for the fact that the white men who tried to erase his people are still in charge of the narrative.

A beautifully written, profound story. I look forward to reading more of Orange's work. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

DNF at 56%

I didn't dislike this book, but it just didn't capture me at all, to the point where reading it felt like a chore. I enjoyed the first part, focussing on the aftermath of the Sand Creek Massacre and the Fort Marion Prison Castle, but I quickly got lost when the story started jumping through decades and generations. The way the story is told, while great at relaying emotions, requires concentration to follow and slowed down my reading pace. I feel like I would have really liked to experience the whole story, and maybe I will pick it up again in some time, but for now I will shelf Wandering Stars.

4★
“He’d first seen laudanum advertised all different kinds of ways. As an elixir. A soothing syrup. Once he saw it called the poor child’s doctor. Another time it was advertised for teething babies.”

And so begins this story of opiates. The dedication reads:
“For anyone surviving and not surviving
this thing called and not called addiction”

Important, difficult, interesting, confusing. This is what crossed my mind as I was reading. Addiction really wasn’t one, although I realise the author is speaking of the repercussions of colonialism, which kept Indians, especially children, in controlled institutions where their customs and languages were forbidden. I learned none of this at school.

“Charles Star’s memories come and go as they please. They are a broken mirror, through which he only ever sees himself in pieces. He doesn’t know that it is true of everyone, of memory itself
. . .
He has forgotten that he has forgotten things on purpose. This is how he has hidden them away from himself. He suspects there must be something worse beneath the worst of what he knows happened to him at the school, the haircuts and the scrubbings and the marches, the beatings and starvation and confinement, the countless methods of shaming him for continuing to be an Indian despite their tireless efforts at educating and Christianizing and civilizing him.”

Nor was I taught about this.

“These kinds of events were called battles, then later— sometimes—massacres, in America’s longest war. More years at war with Indians than as a nation. Three hundred and thirteen. After all the killing and removing, scattering and rounding up of Indian people to put them on reservations, and after the buffalo population was reduced from about thirty million to a few hundred in the wild, the thinking being “’very buffalo dead is an Indian gone,’ there came another campaign-style slogan directed at the Indian problem: ‘Kill the Indian, Save the Man.’”

I think that conquerors in ancient times captured and enslaved whatever survivors there were after the last battle. As society has progressed (I use the word loosely), those who move in and take over someone else’s land, plant a flag, declare it a ‘new’ country, tend to ‘allow’ the original inhabitants to do domestic and farm work until they are ready to be assimilated into the new society (once they have learned their place, of course). Kill the Indian and save the man.

Today, not just in America but around the world, First Nations Peoples are attempting to reclaim their cultures and languages with pride. In spite of Charlie Star’s ‘broken mirror memories’, some traditions are indeed being passed down, like the dances and songs and the powwow, where performers and participants wear the regalia particular to their tribe.

Some of this was explained in the Pulitze Prize-winning first book, There There, but the family dynamics, both historically and present-day, are shown in more detail here. It is heartbreaking to watch those lost children, who are now grandparents, trying to save their own grandchildren from drugs.

It is no wonder that people turn to anything to numb the pain. What began with ceremonial peyote becomes dope, opioids, and the concoction the young people here called Blanx, because the ingredients changed according to what the supplier could get for them to mix up and sell. Life in California is not a beach for them. It sucks. Big time.

Many sections are narrated in the second person, which I found confusing. There is a good family tree in the front of the book that I referred to frequently. As with many families, people are named after each other, so I’d forget which generation was which.

“Your full name will be Victoria. Your real mother will give you that name, will have said that to your white parents as they helped her through labor, while also helping themselves to you, your mother’s child, just as soon as the wet and life in her eyes was gone.

They will keep the name Victoria for you, but only ever call you Vicky. That they keep anything that came from your mother will be a kind of miracle, as all Indians alive past the year 1900 are kinds of miracles.
. . .
You will never know that the name Victoria also comes by way of your grandfather, Victor Bear Shield.”

It’s in the latter part of the book that the story proceeds in a more usual narrative form, following a family of characters, friends and tribal members. We get to know more about Orville Red Feather, his siblings and aunt-grandmother.

I admired the writing and the story, but I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it. I don’t mean because of the message. I loved There There and was sorry it came to such an abrupt ending. I have no excuse for getting lost and losing the thread.

I’m giving the stars for the importance of the story and the writing, while still allowing for the fact that I felt like I was missing something.

Thanks to #NetGalley and Random House UK for a copy of #WanderingStars for review.

Impressive story of a native American family and their individual struggles with displacement, addiction and pain towards survival and hope. The second and third part were even more captivating than the first part, and I can't stop thinking about Orvil and Lonny. Well-written, important and highly recommended!
Thank you Random House UK and Netgalley for the ARC.

Orange's sophomore novel is both a sequel and a prequel to his debut: We re-encounter Orvil, the teenager who was trying to find his cultural identity and got shot at the powwow at the end of There There, as well as his family members. Not only do we learn what happened after the shooting incident, no, Orange traces Orvil's lineage back to the 1864 Sand Creek massacre, thus turning this into a story about how inter-generational trauma manifests. Per usual, Orange's characters are so captivating and deep that he manages to convey what mere history books cannot depict: How history feels, how it unfolds inside a person's consciousness and how it works on the subconsciousness.

"Wandering Stars" is a book about survival and its cost, and the repeated attempts of individuals to both connect to their heritage and flee a circle of (attempted) destruction as well as self-destruction. Orvil's ancestor Bird survives the massacre against the Cheyenne and Arapaho (Orange is also a member of this tribe) only to be imprisoned in Florida where he shall be "re-educated" (so stripped of his culture), a destiny his son Charles relives a generation later in the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Other ancestors lose their parents and are raised by white people, addiction to drugs and alcohol are recurring themes, as well as discrimination and exploitation, but also various forms of resistance, most notably the occupation of Alcatraz.

Back in the present, Orvil develops an opioid addiction after his hospital stay and befriends another struggling teenager with indigenous roots, while his beloved great-aunt Opal falls severely ill. Not only does Orange write some of the best, most honest passages on why people abuse drugs that I've ever read, he also illuminates how the resistance lives on in the young characters, often without them even realizing it: Orvil, his friend Sean, and his brother Lony all ponder how to find ways to live their cultural identity, they want to know what it means to be Native, despite the fact that much of their culture was not passed down by their elders, despite settler society wanting them to shed their heritage, despite the suffering the familial trauma has caused them. They are convinced that there is beauty and community to be found in who they are, and the generations are connected by their love for music and dancing and the will to uphold and create rituals.

The title of the novel refers to a song by Portishead, which alludes to the Bible verse Jude 1:13 about false prophets (Bird takes the name Jude Star and studies the Bible in his Florida prison cell). And there is also another connection the text makes: That to Le Clézio's novel Étoile errante which tells the story of Jewish and Palestinian refugees in and after WW II.

And now I want this year's prize judges to give Orange some love. In fact, lots of it.

Wandering Stars
by Tommy Orange

In his follow up to There, There, Tommy Orange brings us a new story which includes some of the characters we met already, Jacqui Red Feather, Orvil, Loother and Lony, Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield and some new ones, or rather older ones, their ancestors beginning with Jude Star, a survivor of the Sand Creek massacre of 1875.

Through the voices of Jude Star and his descendents we get to hear about the brutal reality of life and the generational trauma of First Nation people, from the dispossession of their land, the stamping out of their culture and the attempted erasure of their very existence.

I found this much more character driven than There, There, relying less on the impending-doom mood, and more on the despair of never really being able to escape the "othering", socially or economically. It highlights the diversity and nuances within the native community, but also the perversity of cultural appropriation.

It's the story of survival, but not of thriving. It is stark and morose reading but it is important reading, as is any voice that is trying to reclaim a narrative that has been overwritten by those who have stolen history.

Publication date: 21st March 2024
Thanks to #NetGalley and #Vintage for the ARC

Tommy Orange's latest work is as compelling as his previous one. i did struggle with the tone, which sometimes seemed more that of a nonfiction book.

When I finished There There last year, amidst the chaos of the ending, I was so happy to see that we would be catching up with those characters in Orange’s forthcoming novel, Wandering Stars.

I guess this is a prequel & a sequel? We follow several generations of the same family starting with the Sand Creek Massacre of 1865. The generational treatment of this one family alone, starting with an escape from this massacre, is truly horrendous. Made even more harrowing when we catch up with the family in the present day as they are recovering after a shooting.

The writing is so vivid that the places & people feel so real & realised. However this is very bleak. The relationships from There There have changed and there is, understandably, no longer a lightness.

This can be read as a standalone however reading There There first definitely makes for a much richer experience.

Tommy Orange's latest book had been in the spotlight for a while and did not disappoint. With his unique writing style, he sheds light on the struggles of "urban Indians" and brings insight into what it is like to be one. As a tribe member, I was delighted to read his latest work. The book does take a different approach, but it is needed to help understand the second half. It's crucial to comprehend the struggles that Native Americans have faced throughout history, and this book does a fantastic job of highlighting them. Tommy Orange is a must-buy author because of his ability to provide insight into what it means to be a Native today. I'm looking forward to his next book, as this one confirms why he's such a highly regarded author. Don't miss out on this masterpiece that delves deep into the heart of Native American life. Tommy Orange is a brilliant author because of his ability to provide a deep understanding of what it means to be a Native today.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Well, this took me a while to finish. Wandering Stars is not necessarily long, but it is a dense book. Its subject matter is quite difficult to read at times, chronicling the atrocities that the Native American people had to survive and endure, plus the trauma that was passed down from generation to generation. Taking us from the Sand Creek massacre to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, from the opioid crisis to the Covid pandemic, this is a decades-spanning story comprised of shorter often individual stories.

I will say that, for me, Wandering Stars can be divided into two parts: a 5-star Historical family saga, and a 2.5-star Contemporary tale. The dissonance between the two was quite jarring for me, and I wish some of the experimental, almost short-story-like quality of the first part had been kept throughout the rest of the book. The second half fell a bit flat for me, but perhaps I would've enjoyed it more had I read There There since it was a sequel to that book.

Taking into account Tommy Orange's irresistible writing and the fantastic essay at the start of the book, it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't round up my overall rating.

Lost and wandering......................

When an individual suffers a trauma which leads to PTSD that individual needs the help and support of his community to heal. So what happens when it's a generational trauma, who is going to the be there to offer help and support for the healing? Because the whole generation is traumatised and the trauma is not a single occasion but a repeated trauma across generations and everybody hurts.

So although it is hard, very hard to read, the cycles of trauma and it's effects being devastating, it is a must read. Because it does show why there are these lost people, people torn from their land, from their communities, from their families, lost in a loop of hurt and more hurt and why they can't seem to bounce back.

In order to elaborate the review of "Wandering Stars", it is imperative to refer to my previous review of "There, There", the author's previous book, which is closely related to the present work. In that review, I expressed my dissatisfaction with its denouement, which I described as a kind of "non-ending", while stating that "the book had captivated me, both for its writing style and for the stories that were skilfully woven together to form a complete picture at the end".
In Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange connects the threads of There, There. He begins by recounting the family history from the turn of the century, allowing us to understand the oppression suffered by Native Americans, as well as their struggle with alcohol and drug abuse. It then goes into the events behind the plot of "There, There", an aspect that I personally missed at the end of the book.
In short, the book captivated me because it offers a beginning and a closure to the stories of characters that had deeply captivated me. As such, I consider the two books to be an inseparable tandem, neither of which can be fully enjoyed separately.

Para elaborar la reseña de "Wandering Stars", es imperativo hacer referencia a mi previa reseña de "There, There", el anterior libro del autor, el cual está estrechamente relacionado con el presente trabajo. En dicha reseña, expresé mi descontento con su desenlace, al que describí como una especie de "no final", mientras afirmaba que "el libro me había cautivado, tanto por su estilo de escritura como por las historias que se entrelazaban hábilmente hasta formar un panorama completo al final".
En "Wandering Stars", Tommy Orange conecta los hilos de "There, There". Comienza relatando la historia familiar desde los albores del siglo, permitiéndonos así comprender la opresión sufrida por los nativos americanos, así como su lucha contra el abuso de alcohol y drogas. Posteriormente, se adentra en los acontecimientos que suceden tras la trama de "There, There", un aspecto que personalmente eché de menos al concluir su lectura.
En resumen, el libro me ha cautivado porque ofrece un inicio y un cierre a las historias de unos personajes que me habían cautivado profundamente. Por ello, considero que ambos libros forman un tándem inseparable, y ninguno puede disfrutarse plenamente por separado.

Both a prequel and a sequel to the author’s debut “There, There”.

Whereas “There. There” could be seen as a vertical slice through time – a polyphonic series of interleaved chapters chronicling the contemporaneous lives of a group of Urban Indians/Native Americans which intersect in a explosive Tarantino-esque finale at a powpow; this novel (particularly in the prequel section) could be seen as taking a horizontal slice – taking a cross generational approach to looking sequentially at the lives of a group of Native Americans.

And whereas the title of the debut was taken from a Gertrude Stein Quote (which happened also to be a Radiohead song), this novel was taken from a Portishead song which was in turn taken from the bible Jude 1:13).

Exactly as with “There, There” this novel opens with a Prologue which is effectively an essay setting out in damning terms the mistreatment of Indians (the term the prologue uses) by the American settlers – just as in that book, the Sand Creek Massacre is featured, but here the Prologue moves on to consider what happens after the Indian Wars “began to go cold” and the forced assimilation of Indian children into boarding schools, in particular talking of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School set up by Richard Henry Pratt, based heavily on the regime he developed at the Indian Prisoner of War camp he ran at Fort Marion.

The Prequel Part of the Novel “Part One: Before” sets out the history of a group of antecedents of Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (adopted grandmother of Orvil Red Feather) and her half-sister Jacquie Red Feather (Orvil’s real grandmother) from “There, There”.

It opens in 1924 first person with Jude Star – a child-survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, who is later a prisoner at Fort Marion, where he becomes fascinated with the Bible and how it relates to the experience and legends of his own Cheyenne tribe. Later he becomes addicted to alcohol, but marries an Irish-American Hannah who he meets at a church and they have a son Charles Star. We then have: a third party section which alternates between Charles Star and Richard Henry Pratt; a first party section by Charles’s wife (Charles himself is shot attempting a robbery) Opel Viola addressed to her as then unborn daughter Victoria Bear Shield; an unusual second person imperative (“your birth will mean your mother’s death”) section about Victoria Bear Shield - orphaned at birth, adopted by the family with which her mother lived as a servant, later mother via different short lived relationships to Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield and Jacquie Red Feather) and a participant with her daughters in the Indian protest/occupation of Alcatraz in the late 1960s.

Overall this section can at times seem a little too fragmentary – a useful family tree makes it possible to keep track of what can see like a slightly bewildering list of characters, many of which we visit only for a short time with much of what seems like the crucial action (from the opening massacre to the Alcatraz protest) takes place largely off page – but the cumulative effect of the generational trauma and dispossession.

The Sequel Part of the Novel “Part Two: Aftermath” begins in 2018 with Orvil Red Feather recovering from his shooting at the pow pow, a recovery which ends with him being addicted to his painkillers. And from there we move around the stories of Orvil, Jacqui, Opal Viola and Orvil’s two brothers Loother and Lony. Addiction – to smoking, painkillers, alcohol, even cutting - is a constant theme and a rather odd side story features one of Orvil’s school friends who finds via a DNA test he is part Indian, has his own painkiller addiction after he broke his back in a sporting accident and whose father runs a pills factory.

The style here is very different – what was compact in the first part becomes very expansive in the second. The first part is almost dialogue free, the second dialogue saturated (and in fact notable for the author’s ability to capture the banality of much family conversation – eg a whole chapter which as far as I can tell involved a discussion of “Donnie Darko”. And while the author’s ability to switch styles is impressive – this second part did not work for me, I found myself flicking through large parts of the discussions and of the drug taking/tripping/dealing parts (which while fundamental to one of the novel’s key themes as even picked up in its dedication to “anyone surviving and not surviving this thing called addiction”) just dragged for me.

Overall I liked the concept of the novel – the linking of the past traumas to the present day outworkings, the way in which mistreatment of Indians has led to recurrent addictions, even the clever use of recurring imagery/objects (a rubber ball band, a mongrel dog), much more than I did the resulting structure and in particular the second part.

This is the sequel to There There and you really have to have read the first book to truly understand the background of the characters and the history of Native Americans.
Told through multiple points of view, this is a story about displacement, brutality, family, friendship and hope.
There are a lot of characters and it was hard at times to remember who was who, but Tommy Orange is a great storyteller and this is a well researched story that needs to be told.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very sad and difficult read!

Keeping up with the characters and the lineage did feel, at times, like a sport I was not good at. Perhaps I should have read “There There” before jumping to this one?

The story is told in ways that will make you feel things and even though, I did struggle to get through certain parts of the book, I would still recommend this BUT just be warned that “Wandering Stars” will make you feel things you might not be ready for.

I thought this was different and an interesting read . I did struggle a bit to put it all together over the different time periods ,but it was well written ,and I wouldn't put anyone off reading it.

I enjoyed 'There There' and I was genuinely excited for another book linked to this one. I enjoyed 'Wandering Stars' overall but found it harder to follow, the characters - there are many of them - being loosely connected and a bit difficult to keep up with. I found the second part of this book better, not necessarily because it was contemporary - I would have enjoyed more time with the characters from the 1900s era - but because it felt more detailed and you could really immerse you in the stories of the characters. I loved the writing, beautiful and poetic and how good Tommy Orange is at conveying the horror of what the characters go through.

This was a difficult read for me. Firstly the subject matter - the appalling treatment of Charles Star who, having escaped the Sand Creek Massacre, has to suffer beatings and starvation at school. The book is clearly well research. Secondly, and more important, the writing style. Others have praised his lyrical prose but it wasn’t for me. To me it was jarring and stilted (see examples below). Thirdly, the book “didn’t come together” enough for me


“A dog managed to follow us away from the camp. The dog was all black, but for a patch of white on its chest with long legs, scruffy, hair and sun, yellow eyes just after I noticed the dog I felt a sharp pain and jumped off the horse thinking I got bit by something , I found a wet wound on my lower back when I reached for it I looked at the blood and felt as if I was falling through the air. Then I took off my leggings and wrapped from around my midsection, hoping to stop the bleeding. the boy helped me get wrapped, then did his little best to help me back up on the horse as I was too weak to get up myself, I slept after that and when I woke up saw that it was night. “

Orvil is driving Mike’s car to pay for staying at their place and for the blanx. he’s taking more and more and not selling any anymore. Mike was the one to tell him he needed to pay for staying. Sean and Mike thought about it. It was Sean‘s idea about driving for Mike to make money , Mike had said this wasn’t gonna be a thing. Just this once said. He would be fucked if Orville oval got caught. Orvil said he would not get caught, but he went to his bag and got out his dream catcher.

So, not for me but I am clearly an outlier.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

I hadn't necessarily thought the subject matter of this novel, about several generations of one Native American family, would be to my taste but the advanced reviews convinced me to give it a try and I'm so happy they dif, I absolutely adored the story. I actually preferred the historical sections over the story set in the modern day but this is an unflinching, sobering and necessary exploration of the generational trauma experienced by so many Native Americans. An urgent and important read and highly recommended, thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t like this as much as There, There but it was still good. This book was a lot less tense and more about family and friendship relationships in the Native American community, and I found it had a lot looser of a plot. Whilst There, There was always ploughing forward, you are able to meander a lot more with his second novel which will be a delight to real fans of his work. I thought the last 20% of this novel was really emotional and I thought the dealing with drug abuse and addiction was the best part of the book. I think Tommy Orange is a great writer really explores the human condition as well as the Indigenous experience beautifully together.