there there (tommy orange)

take 1

Orange delves into the untold story of the contemporary native American experience, giving a voice to the voiceless. In so doing he addresses the issues of alcoholism, displacement, alienation, the desperate bid to preserve and reconnect with roots. It’s a trenchant vision which isn’t afraid of incurring tragedy in order to make its case. Not all endings are happy in the USA. The varied range of characters illustrate this narrative from multiple perspectives, granting access to the reader to the realities of post-colonial discourse. 

take 2

There There is another in what would appear to be an evolving tradition of fractured narratives with multiple narrators which in theory offers a wide-ranging fictional overview of a marginal experience. Off the top of my head two recent novels spring to mind, Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other and Power’s The Overstory. The writing is always accessible, the storytelling direct. However, this narrative approach also runs the risk of reducing the immersive potency of the novel as a medium to communicate alternative experience. No sooner has the reader begun to engage and immerse with one character than they are whisked onto the next. The effect is one of horizontality at the expense of verticality. At times it felt as though we were skating over the surface of these lives, their potential for the tragic or the transcendent always held at one remove. The easy read betraying the easy out, like a netflix package holiday.