There There

Tommy Orange's first novel is a journey through modern day Native American urban life. Multiplying points of view, of characters young and old and all somehow breaking under the weight of History, 'There There' is funny sometimes, often hard, emotionally violent, unforgiving. It is brilliantly written, fast paced, the kind of novel that makes you want more of its characters, more of the heartbreak it causes.

Tommy Orange's début novel surely occupies an important chapter in how literature can gain the upper hand in addressing the issue of the chaos characterizing Native Americans in the contemporary United States. 'There There' begins with a historical prelude listing a wide variety of betrayals and violent deaths various Native Americans met at the hands of their new European overlords. This violent primal encounter seems to set the stage for the self-destructive violence which curses the characters in 'There There' seemingly incapable of achieving a sense of stable harmony in contemporary America. But Orange reserves a lucid and positive message for the imaginative reader willing to analyse the semantic meaning of 'there there' as expressed in this disturbingly funny yet meaningful novel. Mystical consolations, anyone ?