There There Book Review

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There There is a melting pot of voices and protagonists, and the author helpfully lists all the main ones before the book begins so that, very much in the style of a play, you have a vague grasp of who’s who. Following the lives of various people who are connected by the Big Oakland Powwow, we learn of their journeys in the years, months, weeks, and days, leading up to the present. They are all hurting in one way or another, but there is hope at the Powwow where they may all find answers they are seeking. Lurking in the background though, one man, Tommy Loneman, has a different agenda that may prevent them all from finding them….

This was an absolute suckerpunch of a book. I’ll be honest for the first 2/3 of the book, I was enjoying the characters’ stories (it’s written almost as a shot story collection just with a very tightly woven connection between them, very similar to Girl, Woman, Other), but I wasn’t that connected to it. However, the ending was just something else. Suddenly the affections I felt for the characters were compounded and heightened and I was so gripped and invested in all them.

In terms of an education in native voices, this book felt like a raw and insightful look at that. Each character had a complex history and as a result all felt unique and three dimensional. Given the nature of the perspective constantly changing, I think that all readers will be able to find at least one story that they can latch onto and connect with, if not more!

With enough impact to leave you thinking about days after turning the final page, this is a breathtaking tableau of a group of people who are broken and disillusioned by a society who took advantage of them, but whose strength and beauty is evident. At just under 300 page, this was a fairly quick read and I’d highly recommend getting a copy!