Thanks to Deb for this meeting summary.

YUM  [grits =++!] + such a good book & conversation, + missing you Bookies off traveling or recovering, so before we move on [UNBOUND, Stein]. . . back on August’s 3^rd Tuesday, five of us gathered at Mary Ann’s table [overdue huge thank-you, Mary Ann & so good to have you back!], feasting Southern style, lingering over stories & thoughts on this impressive, probing, provoking THERE THERE, by Tommy Orange, his first novel [this part attached if easier]—written from multiple perspectives, focused on Urban Indians that tracks the back-stories of 12 characters  who figure in a shootout at the Big Oakland Powwow & manages to convey the deep grief of centuries of “assimilation/ erasure/absorption, 500-year genocidal campaign,” letting the deep inside be expressed through writing— // dance, singing, drugs, violence, suicide, drumming, multitasking  [p.162 Opal “getting lost in the doing of things.”] alcohol [—drinking  to be ourselves unafraid (Harvey p112 “self-medicating against the disease that was my life”)].   —and who said “Nobody is untouched by demons yet much is given a positive spin here” in THERE THERE:  we’re still Indian where we have land or not. A book about Identity—the mirror looks back, or social-media page w/its true/false pic, and history’s wrap, skin;  about control and lack of it, and there’s always the back story, which Tommy Orange fully unfolds.
Areas we noted to discuss included these topics (some pursued more than others):

• FAMILY—who gets to have or not have; not slaves, not Native Americans (& Blue adopted by suburban parents with pool has that family-> white inside). Also, lack of intact father figures in families yet tribal family supersedes [didn’t get to Ma/kid rapport where there’s plenty to take on—i.e. mother Vicki, Opal , Jacquie].
• PROLOGUE: vivid pieces of dark past as prep for a brutal book—thanksgivings as “successful massacres” leaves no wiggle room.  Well phrased summations: the Indian Relocation Act as part of Indian Termination Policy BUT City made us new, and we made it ours,  . . .Urban Indian belongs to the city and cities belong to Earth—relations!  [Tho its intensity made some of us postpone taking on the book.]
• BACK STORY—how our sympathies grow as we know more—like w/Octavio, Mr. Bad Guy gets a full foundation
• IDENTITY: who is in the mirror, under the skin, on the outside.  p. 48, Opal’s chapter, Mom Vicky speaking: “We’re going to be with our relatives.  Indians of All Tribes. [to Alcatraz Prison] . . . we’re gonna work our way out from the inside with a spoon.”
• OUTCOMES—positive in a surprising way: REAL people represented in characters. Book
  not a downer<– getting to know these real people & their backstories & relationships.
• WHO DIED [Octavio, Charles, Calvin, Thomas, Bill Davis,  maybe Tony, tho he may be living w/birds singing in each hole in him] & WHO LIVED [betting on Orvil & Tony ++, and Edwin, w/sunflower seeded teeth and Blue, finding their parents, a positive note]
• STRUCTURE –the characters who come to be central to Powwow events
  & WHO gets to tell THE STORY—that element of speaking for self, telling OWN story!
  +ARC as writer, this being Orange’s 1^st book, how he seems esp. part of Edwin & Dene [in interview I think he acknowledges Yes, he’s in the 3 brothers]
• ILLUSIONS OF CONTROL—having power or not—& Crime, or Life. Harvey oblivious. [and with the naming, “Follow your name back . . . or p.46 Vicky [answering “why do we got names like we do?] “They come from old Indian names.  We had our own way of naming before white people came over & spread all those dad names around in order to keep the power with the dads.”

No doubt we could—& will—talk more, & each of you would be writing this differently (& more succinctly). Maybe we will finally fulfill our threat to reread a book this next summer & choose this?!  Anyway, I encourage others to add, edit or otherwise alter, though I’d say we were all impressed by Orange’s insights, wisdom—
always filling the holes, finding the center . . .

like in the INTERLUDE on Blood (& quantum introduced in 1705) p. 137-138 “This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath , who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff.   . . . And the [big] boat sails on unfettered.”

Or Edwin Black p.62, on the toilet: “nothing is happening.  I’m here.  You have to try.  You have to intend, & not only tell yourself but really sit there believing . . . or like the name of a short-story collection I’ll write one day, when it all finally does come out.” touching again on the strand about Urban Natives telling their own stories –i.e. LUCAS, with a shot liver, wanting to let Indians speak for themselves, then DENE [ambiguously nonwhite p.28] p.41 re his proposal: “putting aside the pretension of documentation . . . moving out of the way, so to speak.   . . . allow content to direct the vision.”

HUGE number of quotables . . . “Time holds us in its mouth like an owl holds a field mouse.” p.36  and of course the “There is no there there”  Stein quotation +  song

QUESTIONS—spider legs?! Tommy Orange, acknowledging that some of the novel comes from real life, explains, yup, it happened to him—in a public bathroom so he (& his brothers?) googled it and found nothing so he called his Dad who said Yup, sounds like somebody witched you, so they showed the legs around for awhile til they got accidentally thrown away (wrapped in TP)—& to TO, sounded Indian, & already a spider motif in the book  [p161 -163: “spiders carry miles of web in their bodies, miles of story, miles of potential home & trap. She said that’s what we are.  Home & trap.”] .

Credibility stretched: when Fina & Octavia catch a badger. Really? ok magical realism.

Lots of appreciation of this book (& varied digressions!) —noted that the youthful approach of the author is central, an impactful nature of the young . . .

& much to pursue along the way through the evening:  If culture not so impaled by history, could be strong, would make White American society look anemic, in long run more tribal, interconnected.