Wandering Stars By Tommy Orange

A Review of
Wandering Stars
By Tommy Orange
Alfred A. Knopf
Hardcover; 315 pages

By John Caleb Grenn
Special to the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger
USA TODAY NETWORK

Tommy Orange’s companion novel to “There There” dives deep into lives of beloved characters

“Wandering Stars,” being sold as both a prequel and a sequel to the instant modern classic “There There,” is somehow both more and less than that. It reads like an enrichment, a deepening and an expansion set to the original novel. It almost feels like Tommy Orange, in writing his debut novel, did so much exploring of his characters that he had enough from which to mold an entirely new work afterward.

Initially, “Wandering Stars” follows characters after a horrible massacre of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, tracing lives through generations of a Native American community as their children are sent to an Indian boarding school, one of many whose purpose was to make their students “not-Indian.” Then, in the future, the novel picks up after the end of “There There,” tracing the aftermath of another widescale shooting affecting the same community.

Regarding the Indian schools, Orange writes:

“All the Indian children who were ever Indian children never stopped being Indian children, and went on to have not nits but Indian children, whose Indian children went on to have Indian children, whose Indian children became American Indians, whose American Indian children became Native Americans, whose Native American children would call themselves Natives, or Indigenous, or NDNS, or the names of their sovereign nations, or the names of their tribes, and all too often would be told they weren’t the right kind of Indians to be considered real ones by too many Americans taught in schools their whole lives that the only real kinds of Indians were those long-gone Thanksgiving Indians who loved the Pilgrims as if to death.”

Every generation struggles with addiction, displacement, loneliness and pain. They all seek out a new home, or somewhere where they can live in peace again in spite of what feels like a world falling apart around them.

Early on in the novel, the thoughtful prose—a blend of serious and funny—wowed me immediately. This continued through to the last page. Since it is about many of the same characters, I couldn’t help but compare to “There There,” which I think is likely a prerequisite to reading this novel. Because of this, I remembered that the plot in “There There” pulled me forward, turning the pages toward a big something that those who have read will remember well. “Wandering Stars,” though, is much quieter. I did not feel pulled from chapter to chapter by the usual devices. Unfortunately, many chapters are even left as cliffhangers in order to press forward to the next section.

 This left a feeling of meandering disjointedness—a wandering, if you will. This is not necessarily a criticism, just something I noted quickly in my reading. I wondered often if Orange left this as it is purposefully, to allow the reader to feel a deep sense of dissociation from the characters as they did from one another.

I didn’t appreciate this in the same way I appreciate a traditional novel. After finishing, though, I was able to step back and appreciate it for the brand of brilliance it provides. Expansive and thoroughly detailed in its exploration of characters who often feel they are literal remnants or the leftovers of an arguably ongoing Native American genocide, Tommy Orange reveals just how deep the harm goes through generations. Somehow, it echoes both forward through time, and impossibly, backward as well.

I’m reminded that, while this novel greatly depends on its companion novel as I’ve stated above, perhaps all literature does the same. What book do we ever read that isn’t awash in the light of the rest of what we have already read and loved? “Wandering Stars” is not the typical novel I’d rush to read, but in light of what has come before it, it is still a very powerful and unmissable exploration and meditation on generational trauma and addiction.

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John Caleb Grenn is a Med-Peds physician in Jackson. He is an avid reader of literary fiction and shares more reviews on Instagram at @jcgrenn_reads.