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In this episode, Jennifer sits down at Warwick's Books with Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Tommy Orange. He is the author of There There, and most recently, Wandering Stars. Tommy is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and writes about the contemporary Native American landscape.
Tommy shares insights into his writing practice, the challenges of balancing life as a father with his creative pursuits, and the profound influence music has on his craft. The title, Wandering Stars, was actually inspired by Portishead lyrics.
You'll find his discussion on identity, representation, and the nuanced experience of being a Native American in contemporary society both enlightening and moving.
You'll find his discussion on identity, representation, and the nuanced experience of being a Native American in contemporary society both enlightening and moving.
Tommy also speaks about the future of his writing and hints that an original screenplay and a third novel are in the works. This episode is not just an interview; it's a masterclass in the power that fiction holds in shaping our understanding and empathy. It's a testament to Tommy Orange's unique voice in American literature.
Creators & Guests
Host
Guest
Tommy Orange
Tommy Orange is an American novelist and writer from Oakland, California. His first book, There There (2018), was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize[1] and received the 2019 American Book Award.[2] Orange is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He earned a master's degree in fine arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts.
What is The Premise?
Here on The Premise Jeniffer and Chad Thompson talk to storytellers of all types. From authors to musicians, poets, screenwriters, and comedians we get down to the tiny grain of sand that becomes a pearl—getting to the story behind the storyteller.
Jeniffer: Hey, there. I'm Jennifer Thompson, and today we have a special treat for
you. I will be doing an interview for Warwicks of La
Jolla. Warwick's is one of the oldest bookstores in
the nation, and it is fantastic. If you have a chance to go
visit, I recommend it. In fact, buy all of their books.
Every book they have is good, including this one.
All right, let's listen.
Tommy Orange is an enrolled member of the Shawn,
Cheyenne and Arapahoe Tribes of Oklahoma.
He was born and raised in Oakland, California.
His first book there there was a
finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer
Prize. He lives in Oakland, California. And
today we're going to talk about your second book, Wandering
Stars. And I just want to say thank you because
I've been listening to Bordessud play
over and over again in my head for the last two
weeks as I've been looking at your cover and reading it, and I
was so delighted to hear that that's
actually where the title came from, is from a Portishead
song, wandering star. Can you
take us to that moment and just tell us how
that happened?
Tommy Orange: Yeah, yeah, I think I feel like that song has
aged well.
Jeniffer: Yeah. Right. I listened to it today.
Tommy Orange: Like, it sounds like a song that could come out, you know, at
contemporary times and not like sometimes there's a nineties
feel to songs and it's like it just lives. It will
always live there, but that song feels like it's
still. Yeah. so I
was. It was March 2018,
and I was. This is the most unromantic
place to think of a book, in a
way, or it's annoying, maybe, to hear I was signing
5000 books at a warehouse, of wonder
of there before. Before it came out.
And the sales reps
team who are helping me to sign all these
books, they put on a Spotify playlist with the
root, they're there by Radiohead.
And I had known this song,
more. So I think I got into Portishead
because I used to go to
this, open mic night, and there was this
beatboxer who recreated
Portishead's wandering star,
all with a loop pedal and the sounds from
his mouth. And, that was where I really got
turned on to Portishead for the first time. And that was, like, in the early
two thousands. So I didn't know the song at the
time. And, for whatever reason,
in that moment, I hadn't planned on writing a sequel. I'd already
finished there, there. And there was no thoughts about a
sequel, in that moment when I heard the song,
I was convinced, like, completely
that I was going to write a sequel to there, there, and it was going to be
called wandering stars. I think I was
fluctuating as to whether it was. No, it
was wandering stars. And I think she says
wandering stars, even though the song's called wandering
star.
Jeniffer: She does.
Tommy Orange: yeah, so the title was always wandering
stars for me. and I didn't know what
mysteries were be uncovered in the, you
know, after making that decision and really going for it,
all these crazy things came about that had to do with
stars that are in the book. and that, you
know, I couldn't have known in my conscious
mind, how well the title would have
fit. A lot of the stuff that I ended up doing,
and even the historical piece was not going to be in the novel
originally. I. I was in
Sweden a year later and
I was at a museum. I was there for the translation of there,
there. And, I saw
the curator, was giving me a tour because the swedish people
had cheyenne and Arapaho stuff at their museum, and
they were like, we know we're not supposed to have it, and we're trying to
fix that. And all this, preamble before
we saw it, and,
there was a newspaper clipping that had, southern
Cheyennes, because I'm southern Cheyenne specifically.
There are also northern Cheyennes, southern Cheyennes
in Florida from 1875 to
1878. And I just fell down this rabbit
hole. And, it ended up
meaning the book would have this whole historical section,
which I didn't even know how it would fit. I just
knew that there was something there. And
doing research for that, I ended up, finding out not only that the
prison castle, which was basically the root
of the boarding school system in the US,
the prison castle was shaped like a star.
And one of the prisoners at the prison castle, his name
was Star. In addition to another
prisoner, his, name was Bearshield, and
that's a family from there there. And that's how I knew I was going
to write a generational line that started
way back in time and eventually met up, after
the aftermath, or at the aftermath of
what happened at the end of their there.
Jeniffer: That's just pretty crazy. Yeah, it must have
just felt like the whole time you're like, oh my
God. The words that come to mind is, this is
kismet. Like this is supposed to be
happening is just unfolding.
Tommy Orange: I know the novel writing
process, has. I had
that experience with there, there and with this where things just happen
in a way that feels crazy.
Tommy Orange: I mean,
they're there. One of the characters pulls spider, legs out
of his leg. and this isn't kismet, but it's
just a weird. The novel being a
porous process thing, because I
pulled spider legs out of my own leg,
in a west Oakland target bathroom, the exact same as the
character. And ended,
up putting it in the book because I didn't know what to do with it in my
life. It was just this insane, like,
grotesque moment.
Jeniffer: Maybe it's grotesque, I don't know. I, think it's kind of
cool. I happen to love spiders, but I definitely don't want them inside of
me.
Tommy Orange: The lakes were pretty big. It was like this long.
There was what?
Jeniffer: Oh, my God, that's crazy. Yeah. How does that
happen?
Tommy Orange: there was, there was no explanation online. You know, I scoured the
Internet just like the character, ended up calling
my dad because I thought it could be a cheyenne
thing. and he told me he thought I got
witched. And I was like, well, what do I do?
And he was like, I'll pray for you. And that was, that was
all of it. So I was like, I don't, I don't want
this. I'm going to put it in fiction where it belongs.
Jeniffer: I feel like truth, is always stranger
than fiction. And maybe that's why your books,
read so, so
easily, because so much of it just
feels real.
I mean, I found out that, you know, you're a
musician, and as I'm reading it in the music, and your writing
has a musicality to it. And I have heard you talk about this
in other interviews. Talk to me
about how music helps you write and
how I think you even talked about
reading it aloud. Like, listening for the
musicality. Can you speak to that?
Tommy Orange: Yeah. well, I listen to music, like,
95% of
the time that I'm writing, and the other 5%,
I'm not listening to music because I'm reading out loud and I'm
listening to myself, read it.
yeah, so I was a musician before I was a writer. Went, to
school for sound engineering.
I just slipped in the back door of literature
somehow, because you were.
Jeniffer: Supposed to, you didn't have a choice
bombing.
Tommy Orange: And I think I was doing a lot of
this instinctually, this listening
to the sound of sentences. in the editing process,
I didn't even really verbalize it until
I started talking about writing when touring for they're
there and like, for the first time, talking about the
process. so it's a huge part, both
listening to music while writing, but also listening
to the sonic, you know, the sonics of the
sentences as a way to
figure out how far along the
sentences are or how far in I am on a
draft. so reading out loud is like super important
to me and that's part of why I love writing, writing in hotel
rooms, because I'm like completely alone
and can just sort of
step into the work and not be thinking
about who might be hearing me read
these drafts at various stages.
Jeniffer: I wanted to ask you about your writing practice and
what that looks like for you.
Tommy Orange: it's different, all the time. I
don't have a super,
steady routine. And this, you know, I never
did. I wrote it
initially, like, started writing there,
there, at five and six in the morning before going
to work. And, eventually did
a bunch of traveling for the job I had before I
quit to be an author, which was a digital
storytelling work. And I was in a lot of hotel rooms then
writing and then I was in school and,
at my MFA at the Institute of American Indian Arts,
and I have a 13 year old and now, ah, an
almost two year old. So with no
congratulations raising kids, I
think you have to just fit it in when you
can. I'll do like hotel residencies,
to get like solid chunks of writing
done. but it's, you know, I don't have a
consistent writing routine. I do know that I write best in the
morning for sure, and at night and like
certain hours of the afternoon where I never can.
but otherwise it's just whenever I can make it happen.
Jeniffer: Nice. Nice.
One of the things I wanted to talk about was the narration style in this
book. And what's fascinating to me is I
didn't even realize that you were switching up the
narration until almost toward the end.
And then I was starting a chapter and I
realized I didn't know who was speaking. And then I looked at the title of
the chapter again and normally when people switch
voice, not just narration style, but voice,
they'll have the name of the person at the top of the chapter
and you didn't do that. And it took me a
beat, like literally just a beat to go, oh, this is who's
talking? And that's when my brain went, oh, wait a minute, he's been
changing narration style this whole time. But I didn't
realize it because it's so smooth. So
I just want to hear, was that a process?
Did it happen pretty organically or when did you realize
that this was going to be. I think I heard you say polyphonic.
A polyphonic book at one point.
Tommy Orange: Well, I was always trying to write
a different book than there, there.
Even though it's deeply connected to there there. I
didn't want to do the same thing. And
in some ways I feel like titling
the chapters. The first and last name of the characters
may be a little bit lazy or so.
When it came to thinking about chapter titles, it was.
It was further along in the process. I
had different names the whole time, but
I wanted to pick out moments
or phrases or words within
the chapters to be the chapter
titles. In the same way that
when you work in the title
of the novel into the work itself, it sort of has this
boomerang effect of like, oh, this is. This is what this
is about. I wanted a
miniature version of that to happen in the
chapters.
Jeniffer: It did.
Tommy Orange: It totally did. Somewhere along the way,
I decided that's the way I wanted to do the chapter
titles. But I always had shifting,
Narration, character and pov.
Intense. because that's part of the way I like to
revise. It allows me to
keep working. When I don't feel like I can. I'll just
change a character's pov or the tents and see what
it does. And I may end up changing it back, but it really
allows me to keep going back to the work. Because I can do something
really technical. If I'm not feeling inspired or if I'm feeling
really bad about myself or the writing. I
can do like technical work and just make sure I keep
working. Cause that's one of the hardest parts, is to not get
stuck and to not get distracted or
make excuses to not keep working.
Jeniffer: Yeah. Did you ever feel like giving up on
wandering stars?
Tommy Orange: Yeah. I mean, I think the whole endeavor
to write it has everything to do with not giving
up. And I think with a lot. With a lot of
creation. I think the
other side of the coin for creatives
is destruction. And, I
think destruction, the tools
of destruction are like doubt. And that's why
block and paralyzation happens a lot with
writers and with other creative people.
So it's a constant.
Like, am what
I doing? Is what I'm
doing worth anybody else's time? Is it
worth my time? Is the writing
any good? Is the story any good? These are
constant. Just constance. And
I think I'm far. I
spent twelve years on two books, six years on
each. And I know enough
now just to accept that that's going to be
there. but I know it's not
going away. I'm writing a third book, which I
sold at the end of last year, and,
the same stuff is there,
but
it's easier to have there if you know it's
supposed to be there. It's part of the tool that makes
your writing better is doubt. if you just
accepted that your sentences are good as they come out, then you're
probably not going to make great sentences.
Jeniffer: So true. So true. And I know you give a lot of credit to
your editor, Jordan. I assume
she is still your editor for this third book.
Tommy Orange: Yes. Yeah. I love Jordan and working with
her and, the way that she edits is, really
not intrusive. on a sentence level,
she's really, like, big picture visionary,
and gives me things to think
about rather than this
or that needs to change definitively.
She directs me toward a greater
vision of what I've already tried to
envision.
Jeniffer: That's pretty incredible. Wow. Yeah, that's pretty
incredible. Your writing has,
To me, it feels like poetry. Even the hardest
parts to read still come out in this very beautiful
prose, and it does have this musicality to
it. There's something, that I wanted you to read, and I
asked you earlier to read it. So, I'm not hitting
you up. Do this thing.
But the thing about this
writing that I think is so amazing, and I think why
people love you so much is you take incredibly
devastating topics, really important topics. We're talking about
addiction. We're talking about historical trauma. and
then you make it beautiful. It's more
palatable, I think, that way. And the characters
are beautiful and they're real and they have so much
depth. And that's why I think you can write
about things that would be so otherwise, so difficult to
read. And so I wanted you to read this one passage. Cause I
think it's a really good example of something that just hits you and
makes you. Makes you stop and think. Like,
reading there, there. For me, I read it through really
fast, but when I read
wandering stars, I had to keep stopping and, like, kind of
sitting with the language and
reading it again and, like, wanting to write things down
and, like. So, so good.
So well done.
Tommy Orange: So thank you. Thank you.
Jeniffer: Let's read this for our listeners.
Tommy Orange: So I have to share this, sort of brag
because it was like an insane
moment for me. I was sharing a stage with Louise
Erdrich on this tour for wandering
stars.
Jeniffer: Congratulations on that. She's amazing.
Tommy Orange: I can't remember if she asked me this
before or on
stage, but I think it was before
she said she asked if. So the
character, the part that I'm reading, the character is going through chemotherapy
and, has cancer. And maybe
that's a tiny spoiler,
but she said you must have been really close to
somebody, who's gone through this,
because she had gone through it. And she said
the way that I wrote it was perfect.
Like, perfectly fit the feeling.
And, while I do pull generously
from my own life and experience for all of my
work, this just came out of,
I, don't know where. Just my imagination. It really was
not based on any person or even
research. It was just, imagining
into it.
Jeniffer: Wow.
Tommy Orange: It was one thing to be grateful for the ancestors
and another thing to know them on the page.
I always felt like we didn't do good enough.
That our family line was in some way weak
and yes, weakened by the effects of history, colonization,
historical trauma, but also not strong enough to
pass down the traditions or language successfully
because we lacked something. I hadn't
considered everything that had happened, how far back
it had been happening to us. We come from
prisoners of a long war that didn't stop. Even when it
stopped, was still being fought. When my mom
helped take over Alcatraz, I was
part of the fight too. So were my
grandchildren. But surviving wasn't
enough to endure or pass through.
Endurance test after endurance test only ever give
you endurance test of passing abilities.
Simply lasting was great for a wall, for a
fortress, but not for a person.
Jeniffer: So m powerful. Yeah. I mean, it's an
example, but it happens over and over and over again in your
book, and you talk about really hard things and
these hard lives, and I'm thinking about all of
the research. I mean, seven generations,
that's a lot. So I'd like to
know a little bit about the research and how much. I mean, it's not surprising it
took you six years to write this book, but talk
about the research and the experience for you
just discovering over and over again these traumas
that were happening.
Tommy Orange: So, yeah, it's a mix of research and
I'd never written historical fiction before, so that
was a RealLy new
thing.
so the book opens with, a, ah, young man
escaping, from the sand creek
massacre. And this part was not reseaRch. This
was a story that my dad, that I grew up my dad telling
this story, and he'd heard it from his grandmother
and great grandmothers, and this
story told from people that were pretty close to
it. and so
I just sort of imagined into that whole part, and that
was not research based at all.
I'm sorry, can you hear something in my m
background?
Jeniffer: Not at all. Oh, yeah.
Tommy Orange: Okay, good.
Jeniffer: You're good.
Tommy Orange: My, my son's rolling something upstairs.
Jeniffer: He's rolleRblading. I know it.
Tommy Orange: but for the. For the. The prison castle at Fort
Marion part, you know, I
read a couple books for that. I read a
couple books about Pratt and Carlisle.
so all the history stuff, I found that
even though I don't include a ton of, like,
facts from history or there's not a ton of
research you'll find in the book, I needed. I
found that I needed to, like, really immerse myself in
just people talking about that time period or
writing about people from that time period to convince myself
that I could. Because a lot of the characters, it's very
character driven. A lot of the narrative
is internal. and it's
about how they're feeling, what they're thinking about.
so that was a super new thing because they're
there. I really didn't do very much research either.
I worked in the community for almost ten years.
I was on a powwow committee, and that was part of where
the whole idea came from. and then I grew up in Oakland
as a native person of mixed
ancestry. grew up in
Oakland around other
native people my whole life. so the historical fiction
and research part was super new for
this. and I didn't really find it to
be
heavy. I feel like, just as
with writing stuff that
clarifies complex feelings,
that it unburdens me because I understand
it better. The same with research. If
I'm finding out more, that makes things
make more sense. Even if
it might be heavy or dark or
depressing to know about the pain that's
there, ultimately it
helps, it clarifies.
And that is sort of the key
to, being able to work with this material,
is knowing that I'm not taking
on a burden. I'm trying to unravel
something.
Jeniffer: Totally. That's really well said. Well, and
that actually leads perfectly to my next question.
So, Sean, one of our characters, and, we don't want
spoilers. We gotta be careful. But there's something
that's happening with the character that I wanted to ask you about.
You know, he finds out that he has native.
He's part native, and he's adopted. So he didn't know his
history. He was told he was italian.
And he's sort of struggling with, like, how much
can I own? And can I say I'm indian? And
I just wanted to ask you, like, how much personal,
experience went into writing
that challenge for that character of, like,
it's not me, it's not my life, but how much of it can
I own or should I or do I need to know about? And then
Opal, who's protecting her grandkids from
something that she thinks is going to make their life harder, but
really protecting them from their history is
what makes it harder.
Tommy Orange: Yeah. well, you know, in the case
of Sean,
I don't know where Shawn came from. And this is part of what
I love about writing fiction is
that, I can become convinced
that a character
has enough layers to feel
real to me, and I just have to uncover
them. and
Sean, I wanted to write a character like Sean
because Oakland is such a diverse place.
and I'd also covered a certain gritty
part of Oakland, east Oakland, deep east
Oakland. but I wanted to talk about
this rich hills side of Oakland
and have Sean be, like, weirdly implicated
in that community while not
being white and having this totally
mixed background. so Sean,
while it might sound like I'm trying to do
things with him to make some point, he came as a
character, as a voice. And with all these
details, before I was able to
think, this is the function that Sean is.
Whatever utility I think I'm using him for to get ideas
across. He came as a character,
with Opal. So my
dad, is from Oklahoma.
He's full blood cheyenne. His first language was
Cheyenne. he didn't speak English till he was
five, and he didn't even see a white
person until he was five. and
he did things like picking cotton with his
grandparents for ten cents a day, just, like,
lived this authentic,
life in Oklahoma. But he
raised us in the city, and he also
wasn't raised by his parents. So he
had a lot of, pain around his
childhood and his childhood home,
and there's a lot of dark aspects of where he
grew up and the people, my people, and their
experience. And I think part of him wanted
to raise us away from
that, to protect us from it. But that came at
a price, because while he did speak
Cheyenne to us growing up, and
it was always very clear who we come
from, there was some aspect of
silence and not teaching us,
that left this
void of. And this curiosity
about, like, well, what does it mean? And,
you know, I have a white mom, and so being mixed
race, in the native world,
it's already like a challenge to feel authentic.
but then if you're also, like, not full
blood or whatever, some of these
dumb things that we hold on to, or if
you don't have the knowledge, or if you don't speak the language,
it leaves you with this idea, like, that you're not
enough. yeah, so that was
just, you know, came from a very personal experience.
Jeniffer: It reads like it. And I heard in an interview
once that someone asked you if you were native. You said
yes. And then they asked you, yeah, but
how much? And I just was
horrified, frankly. And I imagine,
that came out into the characters because that's what
I see Sean is experiencing. Like, he feels
he doesn't fit in either world, and he's not sure what to do with
that.
Tommy Orange: Yeah. Recently, this year,
I was at, a university for a
speaking event, and, this
old white guy stood up in the crowd during the q and
a, and he said, from where I
sit up here, and this isn't the first time
this feeling, this type of thing
has happened. He said,
you look white to me. So when did you
decide that you wanted to be a Native
American? Like, I made a decision along the way that
I'm going to identify a certain way, as opposed to, like, that's who I
am. it's just like,
it's people, a certain kind of
american. Because we're only
taught the real Indians are related to the pilgrims,
and then literally nothing else is taught in our
institutions. Of course, somebody who
doesn't fit the thing that you think they makes them
a real indian. Of course you're going to question
somebody who, has a more complex and
nuanced and human,
is a more human version of what a native person
actually is. Of course it's going to
do that to you. Of course, you don't have to be
rude and awful. but
I also understand it because of the way we teach
or don't teach native history.
Jeniffer: And I hope that changes. I really do.
we have to demand it, though. We have to demand
change because it's not going to. It's just not going to happen.
Rewriting history to have more truths, I
hope that's in our future. but I think, you
know, writing such an honest couple of
books that you've written is a big start. And
so even though that may not be your intention.
It's what's happening. So
here.
Tommy Orange: I mean, I think I love that about
fiction. yeah. What it can sort
of
secretly do to the hearts and minds of people
without, like, be the word.
Jeniffer: Yeah.
Tommy Orange: Yeah, exactly. Without, like, saying, like, I'm here to. I'm here to
say this and to
have it happen in story.
Jeniffer: Well, it's kind of like what you said about Jordan and
how her editing style, it's like, it just makes you think. It's
not telling you how to think. It's just giving you something to chew on.
Something. Something to think about that maybe you can take with you
and change your behavior and change how you look
at the world and how you treat others. I would like to think,
I watched a lot of your interviews, and
we're all asking you the same questions. We all want to
know the same things.
Is there something that you want to talk about that no one's
asking?
Tommy Orange: I mean, I think with wandering stars,
there's a couple of wild,
historical things that are real that I
feel like people just read through it and don't think about it.
But there's two things that I think about.
so Jude Starr, that's the first character we meet in
wandering stars. He is a
prisoner of war at a prison castle.
And, he becomes a bread maker. And this is
the real star. Became a bread maker and eventually a chief of
police. These are real things.
and there's a thing that happened
where they brought somebody in, to,
like, put casts on all of
the native prisoners to measure the
size of their heads. because the
thinking then was like, why are they inferior? It must be the size
of their heads or their brains. and, they called
what they were doing. They called them life masks. If
you look up Fort Marion life masks,
you can see pictures of it online. they're still
at the Harvard museum, the Peabody museum at
Harvard.
So you have these native people
putting on these life masks that
basically make white casts of
them.
Jeniffer: Yeah.
Tommy Orange: And this is a time where the beginning of
assimilation. So the boarding
schools were institutions of assimilation.
And you have this real thing that happened where you're being
covered with white, a white
cast, while you're trying to be assimilated.
It's just like the crazy fact that I don't feel like
one person has noticed that this. I don't
know if they're thinking it's just fiction, and so
therefore, not as interesting. but it really
happened. And these things still exist, and you can see them.
and then the other piece is the camel,
There's a scene at the sort of like the end of the
first character, Jude Starr.
he comes across this camel. And, you know,
people don't think about camels in America, but we had
all these camels shipped over from Saudi Arabia
during the civil war to traverse these desert
like spaces. and at the end, when the
civil war ended, they just sort of set a bunch of them free.
And, so this was
also like a real possibility that you could
come across at this time period, you could come across a
wild camel, in an american
desert or desert adjacent
area. so those are just things that
I'm like, I don't know. I don't know.
Sometimes it feels like
what I'm trying to do with the book is to like, tell
everybody about atrocity and historical
trauma. And that's like the main thing I'm doing.
And it's like that's something
that just exists in history.
And I happen to be writing about this part of history. I'm
not intending to, like, put that mantle on the
reader. Like, this is like my tribe's history.
And we are at the, like, beginning of the
origin of, ah, boarding schools. Like southern
Cheyennes were literally the, the blueprint
for boarding schools. And, so sometimes
I feel like there's a certain way
of reading it where it feels
like the whole point is to tell you to feel bad
about american history. And it's
really. I would never want to put that on the
reader. I think it's an interesting and
important part of history to think about.
Jeniffer: Well, and as an interviewer too, happens to be a white
woman, I'm very conscientious of
the optics. And asking questions about
a history that I see is completely unacceptable.
And I see a future that's going to have the same stuff because we're
not demanding change, and we're not
looking.
Tommy Orange: I don't always love the history repeats itself if you
don't look at it kind of thing, because I don't think,
well, you know, not enough people do look at it.
But I, think,
it's just something that. It feels
so unrealistic to imagine that
enough Americans are going to want to think
about what this country is and what it came
from for it to
be meaningfully changed for the future. This
is going to sound super pessimistic, but it's,
But I will say they're there
has, been taught in like so many
high schools. And I have to hope, even though it might sound
naive that reading
something like this could change
people in the decisions they make, in whatever
ways their life takes them, for the
better. So maybe I'm being pessimistic
and maybe naively optimistic at the
same time.
Jeniffer: Listen, when I think of. They're there. I love
that book because of the character development, because of these people who
I come to know in this inner city life
that I don't know. I grew up
in the country, actually. And
that's why that book is so important. It's the character development, it's the
writing. It's what's possible. And there's a certain hope
in it, too, in your writing. I think, that
really comes through. We don't want to
read something that's just going to depress us and tell us how awful our
history is. It's so much more than that,
and it's well done.
So I'm glad you're working on your third book. And I want to ask
you, is it going to be named after a song?
Since you'd like to do that.
Tommy Orange: It's not. And it's not related to the first two
books at all.
Jeniffer: Okay. Okay.
Tommy Orange: it's contemporary, and it's in
Oakland and there are fewer
characters. I think there's just going to be three characters.
Jeniffer: Oh, my gosh. Does that feel harder? A little bit?
Tommy Orange: M. No, it feel. It feels like a relief.
Jeniffer: Okay.
Tommy Orange: It felt like I have the whole thing structurally already
mapped out. And the mapping, when you have more
people is much harder to get at. So I'm hoping to
finish this one a lot faster. It's going to be a shorter
book. and I'm excited
about it. I don't know how much I can say about it
yet.
Jeniffer: I know you can't, so I won't ask you to,
but I'm trying.
Tommy Orange: To finish it this summer, a
draft anyway that Jordan
will give me. helpful, but hard to
digest notes about, I'm sure.
and I'm also, working with
a studio on an original screenplay that,
is moving along as well. So that's exciting,
too. And also different, the totally different
tone and, still native
people. and thinking about identity and stuff
like that.
Jeniffer: Nice. Yeah, because, ah, I think your books are
universal, too. I just want to say it's about the immigrant
experience is universal, and
there's so much in it that's so layered and
so complex and yet easy
to read. So I just want to put that out there
that I'm so glad you became a writer and that
I've had the pleasure of interviewing you here
today.
I do have one final question. We'll bring Julie back in to join us.
Tommy Orange: Yeah.
Jeniffer: what about your music? Are you still pursuing music at
all?
Tommy Orange: So I don't get
to play as much as I would like right now, but I.
Jeniffer: You have a two year old, so that makes sense.
Tommy Orange: Yeah. M but I played a lot during the
pandemic. and, so
I've sort of quietly,
done this, and I haven't. This is why it's.
This is making it less quiet. But I
have posted songs that,
are on Spotify and itunes under the name
Orville Redfeather that are sort of like,
as if he recorded them along the way to
give kind of, like, a real dimension to his
character. And they're just like, they have, like,
sketch in the title because they're just, like, ideas that would have
came to him, like you describe in the book.
Yeah.
Jeniffer: Okay.
Tommy Orange: Yeah. So you can check those out, on
iTunes, Spotify,
or Soundcloud. And there's a few others on Soundcloud than there are
on the others. so I
am. But, I always will.
Music is very personal to me, and I
probably won't be doing very much public music
stuff. but I'll always be doing it for
myself.
Jeniffer: That's awesome.
And since Julie's not here, I do have another question.
Speaker C: Oh, wait a minute.
Jeniffer: No, I want to know. I'm,
like, worried about blue. I want to know that she's
okay.
Tommy Orange: So blue. And a slew
of characters from there, I
definitely wrote them in. And,
Jordan, very kindly and
gently guided me away from them.
Let's just say,
And I know I ultimately agreed with her. That's the whole thing is,
like, she wanted to focus on the family and have
it be tight, and I wanted that,
too, in the end. So I don't. You
know, there may be something in the future that includes certain
characters that I've,
Jeniffer: Short story.
Tommy Orange: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. there's
definitely a ton. I had to write, like, three
or four books to get to the one book in both
cases. So there's a lot of material that I haven't
touched that I, imagine I would
revisit if I'm, like, in a dry spell,
of some kind.
Jeniffer: Yeah. Thank you, Tommy.
I've really appreciated your time, and thank.
Tommy Orange: You so much for all of your generous, questions that
had really nice compliments. Embedded in them. I
appreciate that.
Speaker C: It was a great conversation, and we have got some great questions
from the audience. So we've still got a lot of people watching with us.
So, we'll get to as many of them as we can
here.
Speaker C: Okay, Tommy, here's one.
Would you say your writing style is less conventional now,
this one came in early, so you might have already touched a little bit
on this. Would you say your writing style is less conventional in the
second novel? If so, why? Is it a
function of the context?
Tommy Orange: I think the second novel
is more introspective and
interior.
and I think there's sort
of like a.
When you tell the reader at the beginning of the book that
there's 3d printed guns and
a robbery and everyone's going to this
powwow, it sets a narrative
engine going that it's not
always, even in the writing, not always something that I'm
doing, but it gives the reader this little
engine that gets them moving through the book faster
sometimes. Like I said, it's not even me doing
it. It's a function of the
structure and the way I designed the first
book. So there's nothing like that in this book.
You're way back in history,
and if you peeked
ahead, maybe you know we're going to end up in the present. but
you don't necessarily know or given an
expectation. so
I think that's a big difference. And part
of the
interiority piece, I, think I
tend to naturally write on a
more interior, plane than a
plot driven one. and I think I
allowed myself to do that with this book because
it didn't have a structure that required us to keep
moving forward in a sort of a
way that required a certain kind of pace.
conventional or not, I don't know.
I try to write books that are readable.
And is that conventional? I really
don't know. I think
there's a certain way of looking at what is
conventional and what is not that has to do with
false ideas about what narrative is.
There are certain people that hate the stream of consciousness style
itself. And maybe,
would call that style unconventional. But I think
we have enough books written in that
style and sentences written in that style that you
couldn't call it. You couldn't honestly call it
unconventional. and I think I do a little more of
that in this book. Longer sentences and a
little bit more like stream of consciousness style.
so some of that may have been
based on the content or the context
of the characters, but I think
ultimately, I was trying to
not write the same book and
whatever that meant. there were new challenges
and new styles that I'd never written in
before. so, you know, I don't know, I don't
know how I answered the question.
Speaker C: the next one coming in is, do you think it's
important to, you did a little bit of the second part of this question, but I'm
still gonna throw it out. do you think it's important to read there,
there before reading wandering stars? And how
would you compare the two books?
Tommy Orange: I don't, I don't think that,
it's necessary. And I, working with
my editor there was very much like, let's
make this standalone and not, rewrite stuff and
not make the reader need to
know too much. And, I
liked that advice and I followed
it and so, no, you don't need to have read there,
there. I think it would enrich the text.
There's another way of reading the book. and
I like to imagine that one day there could be this version of there,
there and wandering stars with a new title that I'll
one day come up with where it
is. The first part of wandering stars, they're
there in the middle, and then the second and third
parts of wandering stars afterward.
Jeniffer: I did that.
Tommy Orange: Oh, did you?
Jeniffer: I totally did that. I was reading wandering
stars and then when I got to, it's not even, it's like a third of the way.
And I, all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute, I
know these names. This is so familiar. And then I
was like, oh my God. Because I didn't know,
I didn't, I hadn't paid enough attention to know
that it was, had the same character. So it was a total surprise.
So, yeah, then I went and read there, there. And back to the,
did you like.
Tommy Orange: The experience of doing the.
Jeniffer: Loved it and I'm so glad I did it. And no, to answer
his question, you do not have to read there, there to read
wandering stars is absolutely standalone, but it's does
enrich the text 100%. And I'm, so I was like,
I don't know, I was kind of excited that I did it that way because
I loved there, there so much too that I got to read it again. So
that was cool.
Tommy Orange: Yeah. So I think it'd be super cool if one day
it's one book, I just have to come up with the right title
for it.
Speaker C: Maybe there's a song out there.
Jeniffer: I know it's.
Tommy Orange: Beth Gibbons is, I think she's about to go on
tour, and my publicist got in touch with her people
and sent her a copy. So maybe a future song of
hers because she's still writing music.
Speaker C: There you go. So you always throw that stuff out there in the universe.
All right, we got time for a couple more here. So just, So
Angelica is asking,
what inspired you to write a novel?
And was this the only genre or
format or choice?
Tommy Orange: so, you know, the beginning of
my writing, I was doing, like, pretty
unconsciously. I was in sound engineering school,
and, I only, like,
consciously remembered it much
later. I was writing, like,
prose, poetry stuff while I was listening to
lectures about sound.
and, luckily, there's no
trace. There's no evidence of that.
and then the years in, sort of, like, trying to find my writing
voice, there was a lot of short stories
and, a lot of
experimental stuff that, it was all
short form. There was no big project. When I
found out I was going to be a father in the end of
2010, that was the first time I was like, I want
to take on a bigger project. I want to
make. if writing
is this meaningful to me, why can't I take it more seriously and take
on a more serious project? Not
with it in mind that it's going to mean career.
Just like, this is what I'm most passionate about.
I need to take it more seriously because I'm, like, going to be
raising a human and trying to teach a human how to be a
human. and,
so I had been wanting to write a novel for a long
time because I love the form. I love the novel as
a form. and it wasn't until
that moment, like, a month after I found out I was going to be a father, that I
came up with the premise for. They're there. and it was just like, a bunch
of people are going to, sort of crash into each other
at a powwow at the Oakland coliseum, and you're going to find out how
they're all connected. That was just the basic premise.
so it was the novel for
a long time, it was what I wanted to do, but I hadn't
taken it seriously enough, and I hadn't thought of an
idea that I could really take a lot of time writing
into. Yeah.
Speaker C: okay.
Robin and Adrienne, I'm so glad you asked this question, because this is
what I've been wanting to ask, too. So I'm going to
combine these two a little bit. So Robin would love to know the
books and authors that you're reading now
or those that have deeply affected you.
And Adrienne commented that she sees a lot of books. So who do you
love reading?
Tommy Orange: So,
I love reading contemporary
fiction. I have major
holes in my classics
department. I haven't read that many of the classics,
because when I started reading, I completely did it on
my own terms. I was working at a used bookstore
and would just read whatever like
I wanted to. so
I read a lot of work in translation, a lot of south american
literature. you know, like, when I first got
into reading, borges and
Kafka were super important to me. And Clarice
Lispector was, like, huge for, like,
figuring out voice and what you could
do. And I think I look to
my favorite writers when I read their books. It
makes me want to go write immediately.
and I feel like the books that I love the most give me
permission to do something that I want to do in my own writing.
like, the feeling is I'm being given permission to do something.
Not like I'm stealing the idea of something they came up with,
but just like, oh, you can do that. Whoa. And
then I'll do my version of that.
Tommy Orange: so, you know, this question's always hard because
I need to have, like, a list where I can read
off. There was, like, a ton of influences for there.
There, like, books like Jennifer Egan,
Colin McCann, Marlon James. There were books that.
And authors that, like, were. I was directly
trying to do something with the form that was based on
actual books. Love medicine, by
Luis Erdrich. Luis Erdrich is one of my favorite authors of all
time. I wrote. I literally wrote wandering stars
with Kaveh Akbar and his book Martyr
came out and he should go read that.
Speaker C: Such a good book.
Tommy Orange: So we're dear friends
and we trade pages still, and actually, next
Friday, we're gonna trade pages for our next
books again. so, you know,
Toni Morrison was really huge, for wandering
stars. I hadn't read,
any Toni Morrison before they were there.
And, I read everything while I was
writing wandering stars. And,
she's just one of the greatest
fiction writers we've ever had.
but, you know, books this year,
like, I'm just finishing knife by
Salman Rushdie, which is
amazing. Dave Eggers has a young
adult book called the Eyes and the Impossible,
which is amazing. I read,
Percival Everett's James while. While
reading Twain's Huckleberry Adventures of Huck
Finn for the first time. I hadn't read it, and I
read them together, which was a super cool experience.
Hanif Abdur Kibb's new, book, there's always,
this year, is beautiful.
I'm also reading demon Copperhead
and David Copperfield at the same time in the same spirit.
Jeniffer: Oh, that's cool.
Tommy Orange: Nam Lee just put out a poetry collection called
36 ways of writing a vietnamese poem.
he's an australian vietnamese writer, but he
has a book, a short story collection called the boat that came
out in 2008, which is
incredible. Like, one of the best short story collections I've
ever read.
and then, calling for a blanket dance was a really
important book in conversation with wandering
stars while I was reading or while I was writing wandering
stars, that, was. Was an important book for me.
I could keep going, but I think that's.
Jeniffer: Yeah, I want to meet with you, like, every three months. And
you can keep doing this.
Speaker C: Exactly. You need to write one of those. Like, just tell us what you're reading.
Jeniffer: Your book list?
Speaker C: Yeah, tell us your book list, because it's.
Jeniffer: You should totally do that. I know you're on social.
Tommy Orange: No, I'm really not on social.
Jeniffer: Oh, you're not? Okay, well, let's, Yeah, I'll give you my email
address. I'll be on social for you.
Speaker C: Maybe we could do that. You send it to Warwicks and go, this is what.
Jeniffer: There you go. Tommy Orange's booklet.
Speaker C: Tommy Orange's booklets via Warwick's.
Tommy Orange: Yeah.
Jeniffer: There you go. That's awesome.
Speaker C: Tommy, this was an amazing conversation. Thank you
for your generous time and sharing your
wonderful books with us and absolutely
cannot wait. I was telling Tommy in the green room
I had the honor and privilege of meeting him
even prior to there. There being
published, and we all knew it was going to
be something special when we read it years ago, and it is
just continuing to be. And wandering stars is
amazing. And, cannot wait for your next one.
So hopefully you'll be here and maybe we'll have
another conversation with Jennifer.
Jeniffer: That would be awesome.
Tommy Orange: Thank you so much, Jennifer. That was such a lovely conversation.
Speaker C: Great conversation. Thank you, Jennifer, for your.
Tommy Orange: Have fun at the Daniel Lenoir concert.
Jeniffer: I will. Thank you.
Speaker C: All right, goodbye, everybody.
Tommy Orange: Bye.
Jeniffer: M.