Quotes from book
There There

Name: There There
Author: Tommy Orange

Tommy Orange

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER • One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year • A wondrous and shattering novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.

“You were white, you were brown, you were red, you were dust. You were both and neither. When you took baths, you’d stare at your brown arms against your white legs in the water and wonder what they were doing together in the same body.”

Tommy Orange book There There

There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Charles, Ron, What does it mean to be Native American? A new novel offers a bracing answer., https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/what-does-it-mean-to-be-native-american-a-new-novel-offers-a-bracing-answer/2018/05/29/a508d0ba-6289-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.be19d7820b31, 9 August 2018, The Washington Post, May 29, 2018]

“Some of us got this feeling stuck inside, all the time, like we’ve done something wrong. Like we ourselves are something wrong … We drink alcohol because it helps us feel like we can be ourselves and not be afraid. But we punish ourselves with it.”

Tommy Orange book There There

There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo, There There by Tommy Orange review – Native American stories, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/18/there-there-tommy-orange-review, 9 August 2018, The Guardian, July 18, 2018]

“They tore unborn babies out of bellies, took what we were intended to be, our children before they were children, babies before they were babies.”

Tommy Orange book There There

Describing the events of the Sand Creek massacre in the prologue of the book
There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo, There There by Tommy Orange review – Native American stories, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/18/there-there-tommy-orange-review, 9 August 2018, The Guardian, July 18, 2018]