Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars is a searing, multigenerational epic that stitches together the fractured history of a Native American family—from the horrors of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre to the aftermath of a modern-day mass shooting in Oakland. A follow-up to his Pulitzer-finalist debut There There, this novel is both a prequel and a sequel, deepening the story of the Red Feather–Bear Shield family with lyrical rage and unflinching tenderness.
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Bloodlines and Bullets: A Legacy of Violence
The title Wandering Stars isn’t just poetic—it’s a metaphor for displacement. The novel opens in 1864 with Bird, a Cheyenne man who survives the Sand Creek Massacre, only to be imprisoned in Fort Marion under Richard Henry Pratt (a real historical figure who later founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School). Stripped of his identity, Bird is forced into assimilation, his trauma echoing through generations. His son, Charles, endures brutality at Carlisle, where Pratt’s mantra—“Kill the Indian, save the man”—becomes a chilling refrain.
Fast-forward to 2018 Oakland: Orvil Red Feather, shot at a powwow in There There, now grapples with physical pain and opioid addiction. The “hole” left by the bullet, he thinks, demands to be filled—first by pills he calls “Blanx,” then by a desperate search for meaning in his Cheyenne heritage. His brothers, Lony and Loother, cope in starkly different ways: Lony with self-harm and blood rituals, Loother with sardonic humor masking quiet despair. Their great-aunt Opal, a survivor of government-sanctioned violence herself, turns to peyote ceremonies, hoping to mend what history has shattered.
Addiction as Inheritance
Orange doesn’t just depict addiction; he traces its genealogy. Laudanum, alcohol, opioids—each generation of Wandering Stars inherits a new vice to numb ancestral pain. Charles, haunted by Carlisle, drowns memories in laudanum; his descendants spiral into substance abuse, their coping mechanisms twisted by systemic neglect. Yet Orange refuses judgment. Instead, he asks: What if drugs are the only language left to speak when your culture is erased? In one gut-punch scene, Orvil’s Arapaho therapist explains “trauma response,” but he tunes out, watching a bird outside the window—a fleeting symbol of freedom he can’t grasp.
The Ghosts of Fort Marion
The novel’s most haunting sections unfold at Fort Marion, where Pratt’s experiment—forcing Native prisoners to wear military uniforms and study the Bible—becomes a grotesque metaphor for cultural genocide. Bird, renamed Jude Star, reclaims his voice through alcohol, while peyote later offers him visions of a “core being” he thought lost. These scenes, though brief, ripple across centuries, mirroring Opal’s 2018 peyote rituals. The message is clear: survival isn’t linear, and healing isn’t a straight path.
Oakland’s Fractured Present
The 2018 storyline thrums with restless energy. Orvil’s YouTube deep dives into school shootings and Lony’s blood rituals collide with mundane teen angst—domino games, sibling squabbles, a stray dog that reappears like a familial ghost. Orange’s dialogue crackles with authenticity:
“Why’s it gotta be so hard for people in this family to just be normal. Not fuck with shit,” Loother gripes.
“Fuck with shit? Is that Shakespeare?” Jacquie retorts, her laugh masking worry.
Even the narrative structure rebels. Early sections mimic Saramago’s stream-of-consciousness, while Oakland chapters burst with fragmented voices—a stylistic rebellion against tidy resolutions.
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Why Wandering Stars Stays With You
This isn’t just a book; it’s a living archive. Orange unearths what America tries to bury: the cyclical violence of colonization, the weight of inherited trauma, and the quiet rebellions—rubber-band balls, half-remembered Cheyenne rules, a scrawny dog that might be a spirit or just a dog—that keep a family alive.
Wandering Stars doesn’t offer easy answers. But in its kaleidoscope of sorrow and resilience, Orange gifts readers something rare: a story that wounds, then sutures, with equal parts fury and love. As one reviewer put it, “This is how you write a secret history—one heartbeat at a time”.