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.

This is a well researched, exquisitely written, and lyrical examination of the unforgettable brutal, blood soaked legacy and horrors of American history when it comes to Native Americans by the award winning Tommy Orange. It is a painfully challenging read, and not having read There There left me feeling as if there was a significant shortfall in my understanding of this, particularly as there is follow up from it here with the devastating repercussions of Orvil Red Feather's shooting, nevertheless this is a richly rewarding look at different historical periods, family and multigenerational trauma. It goes back to earlier generations and the Colorado 1864 Sand Creek Massacre with ancestor and survivor Jude Star.

We are given a profoundly moving glimpse of the raw terrors, the dehumanising treatment, systematic and savage efforts to extinguish all indigenous sense of history, identity, language and culture, the undermining of self, soul, and identity. It then shifts to 1924 with the son, Charles Star, and the shameful, notorious Carlisle Indian School. Through multiple perspectives through epic periods of time, a picture emerges of what happened and the inevitable stresses that follow. We see the powerful strong links, the struggles, the tragedies, losses, addictions, the threat of fragmentation and separation, the cost of trying to protect and ensure safety, and the nightmare of simply trying to survive.

The trauma unsurprisingly becomes deeply embedded as one generation follows another and we see the emerging and evolving sense of and fight for what it is to be a Native American. Orange is a marvellous storyteller, imparting essential information with his blend of fact and fiction, including the hope and love, whilst throwing a much needed light on the darkest sides of American history and its impact on contemporary indigenous communities. This is a remarkable read, emotionally draining, but a must read, although there were moments and characters I wanted to know more about, and I do want to read There There at some point. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I love reading Tommy Orange books. Their story telling is so vivid for me it’s like watching a movie. The subject matter in this book was tough but I loved being immersed with these characters. I can’t wait for his next book.