There There by Tommy Orange

Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth- Albert Camus

By now, y’all know that I have a non-fiction tropism, but all bets are off when the fiction is even more real.

Tommy Orange composed a brilliant symphony in There There, one I stretched out and played for weeks like I do when the reality is so real. I find myself, as a writer, wondering how long it took him to craft this work? Everything here is tight and poetic, not an ounce of chaff in the wheat. Vivid characterization captures the human condition: each one a mirror.

“Dene thinks Calvin is nervous, but then Dene is nervous, he is alway nervous, so maybe it’s a projection. But projection as a concept is a slippery slope because everything could be projection. He is regularly subject to solipsism’s recursive, drowning affect.”

When you figure out the difference between a projection and actually seeing the universal human condition, let me know, will you? My best strategy so far is utilizing a connecting conversation to discern, and yet still, sometimes we can’t tell. 

At the powwow, teenage Orvil “is an old station wagon at a car show. He is a fraud. He tries to shake off the feeling of feeling like a fraud.” 

Can you feel it?

Orange’s assembly of Native characters in present day Oakland looking for themselves and one another in an undeniably absurd world paints the picture of our unreckoned truth. 

“You’re old enough to know now, and I’m sorry I haven’t told you before. Opal you have to know that we should never not tell our stories, and that no one is too young to hear. We’re all here because of a lie. They been lying to us since they came. They’re lying to us now.”

And as such, this is not a feel good story. So much of life doesn’t feel good. 

“Jacquie can’t remember a day going by when at some point she hadn’t wished she could burn her life down.”

Boi howdy.

The more I know, the more I know I don’t know, and yet, speaking of projections, there is validity in the concept that the US may do a better job reckoning with genocides on other continents if we could reckon with the one still happening on our own. 

I said what I said.

None of these actions will solve the systemic problems we have inherited, but each of us can do a part. 

Maybe one of these actions appeal to you:

Read Native Stories.

Some of my favorites are Braiding Sweetgrass, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, and Heart Berries

Support Native Businesses.

Have you heard of www.eighthgeneration.com? 

Land Back.

Sign up to pay rent once or repeatedly at www.realrentduwamish.org

What do I know? Still very little. I’ll keep reading to find out.

Please share your ideas in the comments below.