Literary Fiction by People of Color discussion

If anyone would like to lead the September discussion for WANDERING STARS by Tommy Orange, please let me know. You can respond here or dm me directly. Thanks!

I'll do it..with qualifiers. Got some travel in the middle of the month and I've got the book now, earlier than I expected, so by the end of the month my recall will be a little suspect. Around those parameters I 'll try to engage as much as possible...

Mitzi wrote: "Hi all, will I be lost of if I haven’t read There There yet?"

Hello Mitzi. I found this online.

Wandering Stars expands the story of There There in both directions, serving as a prequel and sequel to the events of the 2018 novel that touched so many hearts. Although Wandering Stars can stand on its own, I highly recommend you read There There before picking it up.

ColumbusReads wrote: "Mitzi wrote: "Hi all, will I be lost of if I haven’t read There There yet?"

Hello Mitzi. I found this online.

Wandering Stars expands the story of There There in both directions, serving as a pr..."

Several other people online who have read both said, reading “There There” prior to reading Stars will really enhance your reading experience, but it was not absolutely necessary to read it. I have yet to read Stars but I thought “There There” was incredible. I may glance over it before I start Stars.

William wrote: "I'll do it..with qualifiers. Got some travel in the middle of the month and I've got the book now, earlier than I expected, so by the end of the month my recall will be a little suspect. Around tho..."

Ok, great.

What an interesting project. Congrats to the author!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/art...

Mitzi wrote: "Thank you ColumbusReads. I’ll see how quickly I can move through There There and onto Wandering Stars."

Absolutely. Let us know what you think.

There are 34 chapters in the book. A short 5 page prologue followed by a page of a very useful family tree diagram.
Let's set the reading schedule thusly...Sept 1-7, prologue and chapters 1-11, Sept. 8-14 chapters 1-22, Sept. 15-30, chapters 1-34.

Has anyone started? How many have read his previous award winning novel, "There, there",?

ive read "there, there" and "wandering stars". excited to chime in as yall read through it!

Happy Labor Day. Taken any time out to start the book? I've read "There There" but honestly have little recall of it. But I did like it according to my rating. I expect the same from this one. The short prologue already was packed with facts and historical occurrences unknown to me previously. I suspect that the forced removal of Indian children from their parents and communities into the indoctrinations and abuses of the government schools will play a big part in the novel. Any other early thoughts about the novel?

William wrote: "Happy Labor Day. Taken any time out to start the book? I've read "There There" but honestly have little recall of it. But I did like it according to my rating. I expect the same from this one. The ..."

The beginning and ending of There There was so striking and profound for me.

Do you recall that incredible prologue at all where you get a sort of historical overview of the Native American experience? I never read anything like it before or since.

And then the ending where it culminates in the shooting at the Oakland powwow, was just brilliant. (That’s not giving anything away it’s discussed in the book description.

I think it’s a powerful work of fiction.

And here I thought that all of the forced removal of Indians was one way. East to west. They shipped them from Oklahoma to Florida too!! And how about the ultimate irony of a stop in a state named Indiana, no less, for the whites to gather and gawk at the last of the savages on a train.

I suppose one must do whatever on can to survive and provide for your family but Jude Star becoming chief of police was a curve I didn't see coming.

Book discussion open through chapter 22.

How do people feel about the writing and story so far? I'm a little frustrated in that I don't feel like I know much about the characters before the author moves on.
I was anticipating the meeting of Charles Star and Pratt but Star died and Pratt, after traveling cross country and finding him dead just disappeared. I would have liked for him to have had some sort of comeuppance before the story moved on to modern times...

-In chapter 2, Jude describes being on a train and riding past piles of buffalo bones, and in the narrative he states, “Every buffalo dead was an Indian gone.” What is the significance of that statement? In what other ways have settlers tried to colonize Native people?

-There are many instances where names and the significance of those names are discussed in the narrative. What is the importance of names as they tie into identity, culture and assimilation? What does it mean for a character to change their name?
-From RGG

So many more books -fictional titles. being published by and about Native or Indigenous people lately. Can anyone recommend any others you have read recently or heard about?

I was lucky enough to find a novel recently called A Season in Chezgh’un: A Novel by Darrel J. McLeod. It has so many things working for it. A Cree, Indigiqueer (a name I picked up from reading this book) educator in a remote Canadian community. It’s about assimilation, being Indigenous & gay in a small community, generation trauma and lots more. It’s a small, moving book that can be wordy at times but it’s a very interesting read.

Tommy Orange talks and reads from Wandering Stars. Interviewed by Kaveh Akbar (Martyr) @ Politics & Prose in DC.

https://youtu.be/G7RldLmVfag?si=Abf30...

ColumbusReads wrote: "-In chapter 2, Jude describes being on a train and riding past piles of buffalo bones, and in the narrative he states, “Every buffalo dead was an Indian gone.” What is the significance of that stat..."

The piles of buffalo bone represents the length that the colonizer went to to exterminate the Indian peoples. And the generational trauma the inflects every aspect of the story of Jude Stars heirs. The slaughter of the Buffalo shows that the U.S. government was not content to merely move Indians to live in barely habitable "reservations' but to eliminate their source of food, clothing, and shelter too!

Entire book open for discussion.

What do we think of the pharmacist dad being his kids drug dealer? Seemed like child abuse to me. And not any normal drugs but designer ones with unknown side effects and outcomes. Seemed to me that he cared little of the possible effects of his son's and his friends consumption and dealing of his home grown drugs.

I just finished Wandering Stars and really liked it, even though I had not read There There. The ancestral thread from boarding school days and ending up in Oakland, CA - getting whiter and whiter all the time - is such a familiar story to me. I've worked for several years as an academic support person under Title Vi for our public schools here, getting to know Karuk, Yurok and Shasta peoples in far Northern California. The struggle to maintain connections with cultural traditions is heroic, and T. O.'s book really captured that. I especially resonated with the chapters where the voice was Lonnie or Orville, their teenage persons grappling with the desire to "be Indian" vs. to "be normal". Hallelujah and praise God for preserving Native Americans. May their tribes increase and have a greater salubrious and grounding influence on our errant ways.

As I'm reading through the comments, I see that reading There, There before Wandering Stars, would give me a more full rounded understanding to the characters and background to the book. I was wondering why it took me so long just to get through 60 pages so far.

ColumbusReads wrote: "-In chapter 2, Jude describes being on a train and riding past piles of buffalo bones, and in the narrative he states, "Every buffalo dead was an Indian gone.” What is the significance of that statement? In what other ways have settlers tried to colonize Native people?

the statement refers to a particular way colonizers used to eradicate native americans - starvation through the slaughters of buffalos in the mid to late 1800s i think. it also killed native americans through the exposure to the elements since buffalo's skin was, i think, also used for clothing and and buffalo bones for housing. it forced assimilation onto those who survive the slaughter, stopping their non-sedentary traditions too. it's a long chokehold, done with more than two hands.

there's an interesting article by the atlantic on this part of native history, but i don't pay for any online journal so i couldn't read the whole thing. i'm just going off my canadian history classes. here's the link for those who are interested and are subscribed to the atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/...

I just started Wandering Stars. It is one in a succession of books I have been reading, both fiction and nonfiction, on marginalized people. It's going to be slow going for me. My mood gets a little dark and my mind is churning. I need something lighter in the meantime to brighten my spirit.

Loother and Lony's stories seemed to me to dominate towards the end of the book. Was this a satisfactory direction? Do you agree? Were you happy with the way the novel ended? I'm a historical fiction buff so I wish there was more about the reform school and the forced relocation of native peoples there. And some characters stories seemed to me to end a bit prematurely but these are minor quibbles to another superb story by T. Orange.

Any last thoughts on the novel? I didn't think it necessary to have read There There to enjoy this one, although some plot threads, like the takeover of the prison island of Alcatraz and the shooting at the pow wow did carry over.
This thread will remain available for your thoughts and inputs even as we move on to other book discussions next month. Thanks to all that have contributed so far!

I haven't got round to finishing it yet but so far, I'm finding it harder to get into than There There. The writing seems more dense to me and I find myself zoning out a bit at times, but maybe I am just not in the right reading mood for it at the moment. I also found the characters didn't quite fully develop in the first part unlike There There but I do like the layout of this book and how the first half serves more as a 'prequel' or kind of introduction and the second half as a sequel

My library ebook loan came near the end of the month (Sept), therefore I am a month post the group read and discussion. I must say that more then half through the book, I am very much enjoying this read, as well as the plethora of historical knowledge I am gaining from this read. Thank you to whomever it was that suggested this read.