Wandering Stars traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Industrial School for Indians through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Redfeather's shooting in There There, Orange's first novel.
A dazzling work of literary fiction that springs from the center of otherness, his new book delves deep into what it means to be Native American in this country ... This is a novel that’s not scared to go into ugly, violent places. Orange perfectly balances the beauty of knowing where you came from, celebrating your ancestors, and recognizing the meaning of your roots and heritage with the brutality of racism and discrimination. That balance is reflected in the writing; poetic passages lead to shattering ones, cracking open the souls of his characters to reveal both their beauty and the lingering scars left by centuries of cruelty and forceful attempts at obliteration ... Tommy Orange has dug deep into the wound of history to deliver a narrative that shows what it’s like to be brown in a land that celebrates white, what it’s like to feel like you’re an outsider in your own home.
Second novels can be gawky creatures, sulky and strained as they try to slink out of the shadows of their predecessors. Will the second novel follow the formula, or repudiate it and chance something new? ... Wandering Stars, calmly and cannily, has it both ways ... But it is a different tempo, a different ambition—almost a different writer—we encounter in Wandering Stars. Where There There shoots forward with a linear trajectory, the new novel maunders and meanders. Repetition is its organizing principle ... With this expansive canvas to fill, Orange can seem perpetually out of time and out of breath. A few key characters are quick smudges, scarcely more than their signifiers ... The book appears to suffer from the same condition as its characters; it cannot see itself, cannot see that it need not hammer home every theme every time, that it speeds where it should saunter, tarries where we need to move. And yet it expands and expands—why not throw in a subplot about a suburban pill mill?—with such exuberance that even at its most sprawling and diffuse, I wondered: Is this novel flailing or dancing? ... What if this billowy book is intended to open a series of small doors, but for the reader?
Orange triumphantly returns with Wandering Stars ... It’d be a mistake to think that the power of Wandering Stars lies solely in its astute observations, cultural commentary or historical reclamations, though these aspects of the novel would make reading it very much worthwhile. But make no mistake, this book has action! Suspense! The characters are fully formed and they get going right out of the gate ... Orange’s ability to highlight the contradictory forces that coexist within friendships, familial relationships and the characters themselves, who contend with holding private and public identities, makes Wandering Stars a towering achievement.
