2024 Booker Longlist: Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

by jenp27 on August 28, 2024

Book 7/13 for our panel is Tommy Orange’s new book, Wandering Stars.

Cover blurb: Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family audiences first fell in love with in There There—warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts—asking what it means to be the children and grandchildren of massacre. Wandering Stars is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange’s monumental gifts.

You can purchase a copy of the book here.

Keep reading to find out how our panellists rated this book.

Jen’s Thoughts: I loved everything about Orange’s prior book, There There (you can read that review here). So I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, this time around I had mixed feelings. I loved the first half of the book that traced generational traumas and uncovered the ways certain things looped back and forth from one generation to the next. It was brilliantly executed and very interesting. Then we get to the second half, which picks up in 2018 where There There left off and describes the consequences of the events from both the prior book and the generational history linked to the current characters.

This year, I find myself saying this a lot, but I was bored in the second half. I found much of it repetitive. One of the central characters, as he struggles with addiction, highlights the loops in music which tie into the loops experienced by the families in the book with respect to addiction. So I understood why repetition was necessary but as a reading experience I found it boring. The book was well written and character development was solid, although some what inconsistent across characters. I felt like the second part felt somewhat stereotyped and forced to me, like pop psychology (I am a psychologist), and so the second half of the book really impacted my ratings. That said, books about indigenous people and their experiences are important and this book certainly contributes to expanding on what is a dearth of literature in the area.

Writing quality: 4/5
Originality: 3/5
Character development: 3/4
Plot development: 3/4
Overall enjoyment: 1/2
Did it deserve a spot on the longlist?
Total: 14/20

Tracy’s Thoughts: I read this as an ARC ages ago, but I still remember more about this than I do about a book I finished last week. This picks up after There There, and predates it too, showing the history of substance misuse in the family, as well as family and tribal lore.

Tommy Orange creates real people who have real problems, but yet he also builds a world, like a sci-fi/fantasy author. I suspect that there is so much more in this book and in There There than what we see on the surface.

Writing quality: 4/5
Originality: 4/5
Character development: 4/4
Plot development: 3/4
Overall enjoyment: 2/2
Did it deserve a spot on the longlist? I’m not sure. I loved this book, and am a fan of Tommy Orange, but this may be too US focused for the Booker.
Total:17/20

Nicole’s Thoughts: It’s hard to rate this as a single book. Part 1 was amazing and part 2 was not. I struggle with books about addiction – I didn’t love Shuggie Bain for example. I empathize, and I feel it’s important to have compassion and understanding on the topic, but reading books about it doesn’t do that for me. Unfortunately, addiction is part of the native American experience. It just felt like the first part of the book it was woven into the story and the second half of the book you were conked on the head about it.

It doesn’t matter where you are from, it is important to understand the indigenous experience and the long term impacts of the displacement of these people around the world. Books like this are an important part of that. I just don’t know that this book as a whole is the best representation of that. I’m glad somebody is writing about it, and that people are reading about it. I’m reminded of 2019’s “The Yield” which was not nominated by Booker, but should have been.

First half the of book 5 stars, 2nd half of the book 2 stars, so that reflects in my ratings below.

Writing quality: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Character development: 2/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 1/2
Did it deserve a spot on the longlist? It’s an important topic, but this doesn’t represent the best of 2024.
Total: 11/20

Lisa’s Thoughts: I really liked the previous book by Tommy Orange, There, There. I loved the life he brought to the characters and the plot really held together. In contrast, I struggled with Wandering Stars. The two halves did not really hang together and especially would not if you had not read There, There. It seems like he wrote There, There, and then took the pieces that he cut out, developed them only slightly, and put them into a book. I would rather have seen the first part of Wandering Stars — the history — further developed into a stand-alone narrative. And I agree with other reviewers that although addiction is important to understand, it can be both agonizing and boring to read about.

Writing quality: 4/5
Originality: 4/5
Character development: 3/4
Plot development: 1/4
Overall enjoyment: 0/2
Did it deserve a spot on the longlist? There, there did. I don’t think Wandering Stars does.
Total: 12/20

Have you read this one? Let us know what you thought.

Our panel’s final rankings