Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024--San Antonio
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange is the story of several generations of a Native American family. Broadly, it represents the disruption to the lives of these and other NA families that the policies of the U.S. government has caused along with racism, discrimination, etc., that came with the beliefs and attitudes of the European American settlers who claimed their lands, fought wars against them, and actively worked to whitewash their history. This one family became so disjointed for various reasons (their village being attacked with their parents being killed, running away because fear of being charged with a justifiable crime, children being taken away to schools designed to erase their culture and teach them how to live like a White person, etc.) that by the last generation, two boys become close friends while attending the same school without ever knowing or learning that they are very closely related to each other. It's left to the readers, with the help of a family tree at the beginning of the book and the repeated use of certain names, to figure out who is related to previous characters and how. The last characters included in the book actually know very little about their family history beyond what has happened within their own lives. The reader, of course, can see connections going far back. For the reader, the book is really like a collection of stories--changing from the character/characters of one generation to those of another and another. The first 25% was may favorite part. The personality of the main character was interesting and the words he put together to express what was happening to him were delightfully charming: I fell, and the world went sideways. The next 40% of the book was less interesting. It provides the information about what is happening to various members of the family as it continues and branches--tying the character in the beginning with the characters that will be in the final part of the book. The final portion was a bit sad. The characters are doing their best to live their lives while feeling they are hidden in plain sight among the non-Native American population. They are trying to live normal, stable lives--holding jobs, going to school, reading books, listening to NPR, getting exercise--while living with very little knowledge of their family history, having one character injured by an unpunished shooter who apparently resented that they are attending a Pow Wow, dealing the the drug and alcohol dependency that has negatively affected so many Native Americans, and being a mostly "chosen" family due to circumstances that have separated them from their most direct relatives yet have brought them together as a family. It's a sad story. The first part was worth 4 1/2 stars out of 5 and the last part was worth 3 1/2 to 4 stars out of 5, but so much wandering detail in the middle part with characters who did not get much development there, I decided that 3 stars out of 5 was the best rating for the book as a whole.