九色视频

Tommy Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, but he was born and raised in Oakland, California. While the story told in Orange鈥檚 novel centers upon a disparate group of Native Americans, Oakland itself ends up being one of the book鈥檚 primary characters. It was of Oakland that Gertrude Stein once famously said, 鈥淭here is no there there.鈥� Hence the title.

The story told in 鈥淭here There鈥� is both simple and complex. We are introduced, chapter by chapter, to a number of different, seemingly unrelated individuals, all of whom, to one degree or another, are Native American. But unlike One Maryland One Book鈥檚 2011 selection, Sherman Alexie鈥檚 excellent 鈥淭he Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,鈥� which was also about modern Native Americans, there are no reservations in this novel.

The Native Americans in Tommy Orange鈥檚 book are all, without exception, what the author calls 鈥淯rban Indians.鈥� Most of them live in Oakland, and all of them are planning to attend an upcoming Powwow at the Oakland Coliseum. It is toward the Powwow that the novel鈥檚 narrative force is directed. We see it coming. We expect dramatic events to occur there. We are not disappointed.

What makes this apparently simple storyline complex is the way Orange chooses to tell his tale. There are 12 primary characters in the novel and 10 more ancillary ones. Each of the novel鈥檚 chapters focuses on one of these primary characters. Most often the chapter is told in the third person, but there are first person chapters as well. Characters who narrate a chapter in the first person early in the book are often encountered later in a chapter about them written in the third.

As you work your way through the book, you begin to realize that each of these characters are in fact, in some way, related to another character in the book. A father is rediscovered, a mother, a daughter, a son, a lover.

But always the sense of order, of connection you might expect these revelations to deliver, slips away just as you鈥檙e beginning to get comfortable with it 鈥� just as, I suppose, the sense of connection felt by 鈥淯rban Indians,鈥� the sense of a place and culture to call their own, slips away from them.

I won鈥檛 kid you, this is not a happy book. It is not an easy book. I guess we really shouldn鈥檛 require either from a people who have had so much taken from them.

In 2019 Pen America awarded 鈥淭here There鈥� its prestigious Pen/Hemingway Award, which is given annually to a full-length work of fiction by an author who has not previously published such a work. The prize is funded by Ernest Hemingway鈥檚 family and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. I think the award鈥檚 namesake would have been pleased by the judges鈥� 2019 decision, as he too wrote about Native Americans in his Nick Adams stories.

On Monday, Sept. 18, at 6:30 p.m., the Easton Book Club (which is open to all) will meet to discuss 鈥淭here There.鈥� I鈥檓 looking forward to hearing what everybody thinks of the book, and, if you鈥檙e interested, I鈥檇 love to see you there as well. If that date doesn鈥檛 work for you, there will be two more discussions of the book in the Easton library, Thursday, Sept. 28, at 6 p.m., and Thursday, Oct. 5, at 2 p.m., as well as a discussion in the St. Michaels branch at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 26.

Mary Pellicano, Talbot County Free Library鈥檚 board treasurer, will lead all four discussions. All Talbot County Free Library programs are free and open to the public.