There There

There There, by Tommy Orange, was the May book of the month for the radio show Native America Calling. It’s an incredible book. I obviously can’t speak to how well it represents urban Indian life; I’ll leave that to many others. What I can speak to is how well it develops and shares characters.

The book is written as a series of short stories that introduce and develop different characters entwined by the overall plot. Frankly, the plot does not matter. The book is all about the characters. Many of the characters I don’t like, but I love almost all of them.

The magic in this book is it invites you to want to know more, and the more you find out, the more compelling it gets. I will warn you, however, it’s a brutal read. It does not pull punches, and it does not sugarcoat anything to make itself kinder or more accessable to the reader.