Ep. 310 The Absence of Story with Tommy Orange

Written By Cherie Marquez
Ep. 310 The Absence of Story with Tommy Orange

Tommy Orange joins The Stacks today to discuss his new novel Wandering Stars. We talk about writing this prequel/sequel to his debut nove,l the Pulitzer Prize finalist, There There. Tommy reveals how he thinks about the relationship between faith and addiction, and why he writes about Oakland. He also talks about waiting until adulthood to finally see himself represented in popular culture, and how not seeing himself is a driving force in his work. Traci also asks Tommy if he has any plans to write nonfiction.
There are no spoilers in this episode.

The Stacks Book Club selection for March is Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. We will discuss the book on March 27th with Elise Hu.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and today I’m speaking with Tommy Orange, who is the author of There There, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. And now he’s back with a brand new novel called Wandering Stars. Wandering Stars is a sweeping, heart-wrenching story that begins in 1864, Colorado and follows several generations of a Native American family cursed by institutional indoctrination. The book deals with faith addiction and generational trauma. And we talk about all that and of course, a lot more on today’s episode, including my and Tommy’s shared love of Oakland, which is of course, our hometown. Remember, Elise Hu we’ll be back on March 27th to discuss our book club pick Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. Quick reminder, everything we talked about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. All right, now it’s time for my conversation with Tommy Orange.

Right everybody, this is an episode that I feel like has been a long time coming because I started this podcast in 2018. When this author’s first book was coming out, I was not important enough to get him on the show that and I have been patiently waiting to talk to the author and Pulitzer Prize nominee. Is that what they call it? I don’t know. Tommy Orange, he wrote There There. And his new book is Wandering Stars. Tommy, welcome to The Stacks.

Tommy Orange 2:21
Hi, Traci, thank you so much for having me. Had there been an attempt to get me on last time around?

Traci Thomas 2:28
No, not really. I mean, like, I read the book, and I loved it. And I was like, it would be so cool to talk to that guy. And then I mean, you know, I was literally like, trying to figure out what the show was. So it wouldn’t have been a good time. I feel like now I’ve had like six years to think about what I could ask you and now I get to do that. But no, your team did not like shit on me and be like no little girl never good enough. We always start here in about 30 seconds or so, can you just tell folks what Wandering Stars is about?

Tommy Orange 3:00
Yeah, I’m sorry. I thought you meant in 30 seconds. That’s when I would start telling. I mean, say it in 30.

Traci Thomas 3:10
Yes, I’ve been doing this for six years. You’re the first person to say that to me, which I actually am obsessed with.

Tommy Orange 3:17
Okay, I’m still figuring this out because the book just came out yesterday. And but here’s my attempt. So we start back in 1964 Sand Creek massacre. There is a young man running away from the massacre. He ends up at a prison Castle, where his jailers Richard Henry Pratt, who uses the example of these prisoners of war at the prison castle as the blueprint for the Indian boarding schools. This guy who this young man who ran away from the massacre, and then got released from the prison has a son who ends up going to the boarding schools, he runs away and ends up in Oakland, he runs away from the boarding schools and they’re sort of cruelty. He is in love with Opal and it’s a name familiar for people who have read, they’re there. And they have a child and that child sort of leads you all the way up until the events that happened in the first book and they’re there. And the second part of the book is the aftermath. And this follows one family from their their and how they recover from this shooting that happened at the powwow at the end of of There There.

Traci Thomas 4:24
Okay, I I feel like what I’ve seen is like people are calling it a prequel-sequel, which I’ve never heard that before, but I kind of love it. Were you thinking of the book in that way as a as a prequel0sequel? Or when you went into it? Did you know that you were gonna do both before and after sort of the events of There There?

Tommy Orange 4:46
I didn’t want to write historical stuff at all. I you know, everyone knows how much historical stuff has, you know, have we’ve covered the historical ground for Native people? It’s Every year, we look back at the 400 year old history of how we relate to the pilgrims, cowboys and Indians is like in the American imagination, just stamped forever as like, you know, that’s, that is what we are. And we still struggle to get, you know, depicted. If we do it all in a modern way on TV, things are changing now, TV and movies, you know, killers of the flower Moon is about to sweep at the Oscars, but it’s very much a historical film. I mean, I don’t know if it’s gonna sweep. It’s it’s like got tons of nominations. Yeah. So I was against historical stuff. But I stumbled into this piece of history that happened to be my tribes history. So I’m enrolled in the Cheyenne, Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, but we are Southern Cheyenne, and everyone who’s enrolled in our tribe, you know, if you’re Arapaho or Cheyenne, it’s not, you know, name, their names when it comes to Native people and tribes are, it’s a confusing thing. But we know that we’re Southern Cheyenne. And there’s not that much Southern Cheyenne history in American history. And this is not the best piece of history to be a part of, but it’s an important piece. Because the boarding schools were devastating to us. And to be like, the wicked seeds of this awful thing, just felt compelling to write about, and there’s this part, there’s this thing that happens. They, while the prisoners are there at the prison Castle, where they pour, like plaster over them and make what’s called Life masks out of them, because they want to measure their heads to prove that basically, if their heads are smaller, that’s why they’re savages. And that’s why white men are smarter, better, whatever. They call them, life masks, and so like pouring whiteness over them. And like keeping these like plasters of them as like the blueprint for assimilation, or they’re basically trying to turn the children White was just like a rich metaphor, but it’s not a metaphor, like it really happened. These casts, they still exist at the Peabody Museum on the Harvard campus. So there was just a lot there that I felt like I could write into. And then I discovered the two of the prisoners names who are actually there, restore and bear shield and bear shields a family name from their there, and I feel like, okay, I can do a generational thing. And that’ll be the tie that gets us to the aftermath. And the books broken up into before and aftermath and the pictures that they took of the prisoners, and then of the children were very much like the before and after, like liquid, how they looked when they came, and then after we civilize them. So the book, sort of playing on that sort of thing, except before and aftermath and aftermath of the pow. And so I found a way to six years to write so it was an easy to find a way to have both the prequel and sequel thing happen. All of the naming of what it is, is kind of painful to talk about, like, is it a prequel or sequel standalone? In sequels kind of like, it feels like it’s cheap and stuff. And, but but like Extended Universe sounds, Marvel, and I don’t know how to talk about it without making it feel compromised. But it is, it is essentially a prequel sequel thing. And it wasn’t planned. And it sort of snuck up on me and became that.

Traci Thomas 8:15
What’s interesting is like hearing you say, how that’s difficult to like, figure out how to name it, or like what to call it, or what language to use around it. I feel like that’s sort of like a really apt metaphor for your work in general, I feel like you’re a writer who sort of is riding around convention, or like trying to do things differently. And so I struggle, like with naming and like, putting your work in a place in my brain. So it’s interesting to hear you say that about just like, how to talk about the book, because I can feel that tension, even as a reader, because like I said, like, calling it prequel sequel, like doesn’t quite feel right. But like, that’s sort of like how they’re pitching it. And so that’s how it’s in my brain. But, you know, even like, there’s parts of the book, like when you talk about the names to call, you know, indigenous, native or Indian people, and you’re sort of grappling with like, what is what is that name? Like? How do we name things? And so I guess the question is, how do you think about naming things? How important is the naming of things to you as a person who uses their words for their work?

Tommy Orange 9:22
Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s the whole thing for me is is figuring out the language for some of these painful things, is where the possibility for transformation happens. Because when things are left unsaid, or if they’re said wrong, there’s pain there, and there’s damage there and there’s harm. And when you can find a way to express stuff clearly or in ways that that feel good to you as a writer, when you’re working with language, and you and you can clarify things, even for yourself and hopefully for the reader. Then there’s movement, as opposed to you know, the stagnancy or the staticness of silence.

Traci Thomas 9:58
Yeah, There’s a part in the book where you’re talking the two brothers. Orville and Luthor are talking and they’re like, kind of play fighting. And they call each other these nicknames. And you’re like, you know, we call it the they hate, they both hate the nickname. But it’s also like this way of saying I love you. And that is, to me is totally like that question about how we name or like how we use words to like, get at the heart of the thing, because I have a family nickname that I’m not wild about, but also anybody who calls me and I’m like, Okay, you’re in like, you’re like, that’s like a way of like, claiming ME and ME claiming them. And so at that moment, I just, there’s so many moments like that actually, in the book where you like, hit the thing, right? The fuck on the head, right? Like, I know that. I know that. And I’m sure you’ve had that feeling as a reader to where like, you read a sentence, you’re like, Oh, my God, oh, my God. Oh, my God. That’s the thing.

Tommy Orange 10:50
I mean, that’s, that’s what What draws you everybody to reading? I feel like it’s like, it hasn’t been said before. But as soon as you read it, you’re like, yes. It needed to be exists somewhere, because it’s just been inside me. And I didn’t even really acknowledge it until I, you know, acknowledge it until I saw it.

Traci Thomas 11:05
Yeah, I’m gonna stick on naming for one more question, which is, how do you name your characters? I mean, you mentioned before that you found these names in the history in the archives. But how about everybody else?

Tommy Orange 11:16
I don’t know where some names came from there. So we get this thing. Some natives like 15%, I think or less, get what’s called per cap, you may have heard of it before. There’s an assumption that the general Americans have a read some survey that thinks that we all just get like monthly checks. Which is absurd. Because the poverty rate of native people is like insanely high. But but my tribe, we do get checks and growing up, it was like 150 bucks every December and like, I would like actually be able to buy gifts for my family members. And that’s what the money meant. Like with my with my own money. Now, it’s like 502 times a year or whatever. Anyway, so for their their, I was on a list of names of people who needed to update their address to get their ProCap check. And I was just looking at Cheyenne names, and just randomly picked some of the names like Opal, viola, as like a first and, and middle name came from that list. And I believe in the last name, Lone min, and the rest are just kind of made up. And I don’t know where they come from names are hard. Like, they’re one of those, like, seemingly arbitrary things. But that also, like matters specifically in a very, like, deep way like the the connection and whether it fits the personality. All of that really matters. So they tend to come like pretty fast. And when they come I tend to keep them I don’t do a lot of switching, like Sean price. In this book came like as Sean price immediately. The name I didn’t I didn’t do very much messing around with that. So I don’t know, I don’t know how to answer the question, because it’s somewhat mysterious still. The process?

Traci Thomas 13:07
It’s so funny. I asked, I asked a lot of novelists this and the answer is just like run the gamut. And it’s one of the reasons I love to ask the question, because I’m always like, excited to hear how people do it. I do have to say, Sean, price is my personal favorite character in the book. Oh, thank you. I love Sean price is an Oakland boy. And I’m an Oakland girl. I mean, they’re almost all Oakland people, except for the first two generations. But we will talk extensively about Oakland, don’t you worry. I want to talk though, first about addiction. Because that is a huge piece of this book. And I I’ll be very transparent with you. I you know, KSA layman, he’s a friend of mine. And I know that he works like he, he’s acknowledged in the acknowledgments that he was like, in conversation with you as you were writing this book. And he and I talked about everything I read just about, and sometimes when I’m really nervous to talk to someone, I will tell him, and this morning, I actually called him at about 630 in the morning and was like, KSA, I have a question for Tommy orange, that I cannot articulate about addiction, and faith and God, because there are these two really big pieces of the book that come up. And I know that he’s riding towards something, but I cannot get at the thing. And he said to me, he said, Just say to Tommy, what the fuck were you trying to do with those things? And so the question is from KSA through me, what the fuck were you trying to do with those type things?

Tommy Orange 14:32
I love that. And I love kids. And I’m glad he was able to be a part of this.

Traci Thomas 14:38
He’s always with me.

Tommy Orange 14:42
You know, first of all, there they are two things that have, for better or worse. I shaped my life completely. So I grew up in an evangelical household, or at least my mom was and we were forced to go to church every Sunday and my mom I’m, I just found out actually, last year, when I was born, my mum, as my dad was rolling her into the hospital in a wheelchair. She was speaking in tongues. So to give you a sense of how intense it was, like, it wasn’t like we went to church, sometimes, eventually an evangelical happened to be it, it was like, Shiloh Church on on school street, down off 35th That 1000 person, congregation, loud and end of the world, you know, coming, like, intense stuff. So God is something I was never not going to be thinking about writing about feeling about. And faith just as tied to that than addiction, you know, just in the same way shaped my life, everybody in my family has struggled besides my mom, but like full on full blown alcoholics, everybody else. And I have had a lot of struggle myself. So it’s just, I was I think I was always gonna be reading about both of those things. And, you know, what I’m trying to get at, I think, maybe not as they relate. But they there is a lack, I think that the characters feel, and they’re not even sure what they’re lacking. And it requires a certain amount of faith, to go at something to try to get that to fill the thing. And sometimes sometimes when you when you go at what you think is the cure, it ends up being something that harms you like drugs or alcohol and, or like opiates. For for Orval, and I was really trying to write about addiction with complexity. And I think a lot of addiction writing can fall into kind of like, this dual nature of like, good and evil. Like, there’s an arc of like recovery comes and then you’re all good and sobriety, good. Being an addict bad. And you know, some of my characters are like, started just starting to feel things once they take drugs, which is not usually the narrative is often like about numbing something. So sometimes when people are traumatized early, what happens is they shut off everything and protect themselves and can’t feel anything. And that’s the problem. And drugs can mean this other thing. And, you know, Orville wonders, like why all artists or musicians or all they tend to be drug users or alcohol users? And I’m more wondering at a lot of these things, and the nuances of them, because that’s something that I think about a lot and like I said, has shaped my life. So I think they’re inextricable. And I think I’ll always be writing about both things. But I do I do think my next book is not going to be as addiction. Heavy. I did. I did. I’d sold my next book at the end of last year. But there’s relations, thank you, but there, but there will be elements of God and faith. And maybe a little poking fun at sort of Indian loving white moms who are kind of new agey, and so maybe even a lighter side of God and faith as well.

Traci Thomas 18:22
I think it’s interesting, because in my mind, like, when it comes to sobriety, at least, you know, in America, it is tied so closely to like Alcoholics Anonymous, or Narcotics Anonymous. And there’s like so much language about God and like higher powers and resigning yourself to that. And so I think as I was reading the book, I was thinking a lot about like, what it means to, to embark on like a sobriety journey without having that like what that is like, and I feel like I still I still don’t know what the like, what I still don’t know the question. But I do feel like you were commenting a little bit or writing into a little bit, that sort of dichotomy about like the the necessity for faith, but also the fact that maybe not everyone has that faith or accesses that faith or wants to have that faith, but that those people too, might not want to be using drugs or alcohol.

Tommy Orange 19:25
Absolutely. And you’re sort of like hitting on my psychology and my journey to like I am on a kind of sobriety journey. Because I like I said, I struggle and have struggled and, and I haven’t gone as extreme as some people do, and, and even in my own family, but I understand that I’m sort of like a harm reduction case. And I understand that I have to be careful. And, and I don’t have I was just called recently by this woman that we were very close with. She’s a Lakota woman who her family goes way back I can Oakland, and she’s a healer. And she described me to my wife as the most spiritual, non spiritual person that she’s ever met. Because I, you know, I have I have all this spiritual baggage from, from my parents telling me, the only thing that matters to us is your relationship to God when I was six, and I think I was asking about like a girlfriend like I was asking about, like a girl I had a crush on. And there they were asking if she believed in God, or like what her religious background is, I’m like, Oh, my God.

Traci Thomas 20:31
You’re like, is Oreos or religious background because she’s very into those. That’s incredible. That’s incredible. So I know that you also through your acknowledgments and through the acknowledgments of Kobe’s book and talking to coffee on the podcast, I know that you to exchange pages for years on on these two books. And it’s funny because I think part of me wishes I didn’t know that now. Because I would have loved to read this book and not have been thinking about murder. But of course, they’re so closely tied in my head, and I could feel so much of each other. I could feel so much of Kobe in this book, because I didn’t know when I read copies, but I didn’t know that you worked on it. So you weren’t in my mind. And also, I didn’t, I don’t know. So I can feel him in this book. Because I just spoken him like it was like very much framing my reading. But I’m wondering, like, did you have someone that you worked with? They’re they’re on in a similar way? Or was this a new experience for you? And if it was a new experience, what did they open up or change for you as as a writer?

Tommy Orange 21:31
I mean, I think when I started there, there, like, nobody knew I was even trying to write maybe my best friend and like, I would read pages to my wife. And she was the only one that knew I was working on something. So that was just like when we, we would have very little time when we weren’t working and sort of, we just had a new baby. And so when the baby went to sleep, there was like this little chunk of time where he would sit on the back porch, we were living in West Oakland. And I would read like the latest thing, because I was getting up at five in the morning to write before work. And so I would have fresh pages to read and new people and she knew the community and I wanted it to feel real to the community. And so she was that some version of that like reading out loud to her and getting her reaction. She was at the beginning of writing there there. And then I was in school, that my MFA and there was like an official sort of like my peers, and workshop. And that’s not the same thing. So the coffee thing was, is was new. I mean, after I graduated, I traded pages with Teres Maya, and we sort of erased to completion together in a way that we were changing pages. But the thing that me and COVID have developed his is totally new, and is ongoing, like we’re trading pages for our next books. And I’m already excited about his, we started thinking of it as like, you know, musicians get to hang out and jam together. And writers have to like suffer alone and in a vacuum. And so we, we, we started doing it every Friday, and it feels, it doesn’t feel like work shoppi space at all, it doesn’t feel like I’m your friend. So I’m going to tell you some hard, some hard words about what you need to do. It’s very much like, nice riff I love this keep going. Like, it’s very, like cheering on and having him read it because I respect and love him. It makes me write different I’m writing into, you know, I’m writing into his ear, because I respect the way he’ll hear it. And the widow say to it, will will motivate me and give me momentum. So it’s very new in that we have this consistent thing and, and now that we we did this, you know, together these two books between 2019 and and then they were published within a month of each other and he was he’s at cut off. And we have the same editors like this insane. I know thing. I love that. So because because it sort of became this actual real thing. It just feels like it’s, there’s no breaking it now it’s just become a thing.

Traci Thomas 24:08
Yeah I love that I just like the idea of like, make like finding ways to collaborate. I obviously do this podcast and it’s very, you know, isolating. It’s just me. Obviously, it’s not isolating when I get to talk to people, but everything else around it is like pretty can be pretty, like you know, lonely and we record and then things don’t come out for a while. So I don’t get a lot of feedback and just the thought of you all finding a way to sort of make make feedback and collaboration possible in your work is really it’s just exciting to hear about. It’s so different than how so many other authors that I’ve spoken to work so I just love that and I also just think you guys are both really great until I sort of want that to have like to like just really good writers like being bestie writer for him is like really adorable to me. I want to ask you this is sort of sort of a heady question, but um, what During what you, Tommy orange, as a writer are hoping to maybe clarify, correct illuminate around addiction around native urban life around family. I mean, you’re writing into these really big, generational trauma, these really big like themes and ideas. And I’m wondering like that, just to me, it feels like taking on so much. So I’m wondering as like one person writing into one computer, maybe sending a few pages to kind of a like, what you’re hoping what your hope is for your work and these ideas.

Tommy Orange 25:38
So I think Native people have been dehumanized pretty extensively over a really long period of time. And the scope of the work that’s necessary to correct that is big. And I’m just trying some, in my small way to address like, we have this pilgrim story. And this is the way it’s taught in education, institutions. And we, we teach almost nothing else. So people don’t understand the context of native life. And that does a lot of damage to us. And we don’t get representation. And I’m trying to restore humanity through through writing stories about us and what we really look and sound and feel like, what we think when we think about expressing complexity and nuance posing questions that may not have answers, but like, this is what we’re like, and just, you know, showing the contemporary picture, because it’s been so absent from the American imagination, and that really does a lot of damage to us. We’re just now we’re just now getting some, you know, some space to tell our stories and to be seen on screens. And that feels really good. I already know, like, a lot of people don’t know what it feels like to not ever be reflected. In popular culture or in education, like, the absence of story, it feels like something, it feels like a hole inside you. And so, I am, I’m trying to address by telling this story, what that feels like, so that people understand the context of native life and how, you know, addiction might make more sense or family life and the brokenness or the lack of connection to our culture might make more sense and, and the burden might stop being put on our moral failings or weakness as a people. And you might understand, like, okay, like, I guess, some of these things, it makes more sense now that I understand the extent to which, what you’ve had to get through, because I don’t feel like we’re given compassion because we, we haven’t been given humanity. And when you think of somebody is less than, it doesn’t require compassion to think about them. So trying to build that in through story and giving context, I think, is the best way I could say.

Traci Thomas 28:12
Does it feel like a lot of pressure to do that?

Tommy Orange 28:15
When we’re when we’re talking like this? I feel pressure.

Traci Thomas 28:20
Sorry, we don’t want you to feel pressure.

Tommy Orange 28:23
I mean, like when we when we get into the headspace of like, what’s the responsibility of the writer? And what, what could we possibly do? And what are the problems with the narrative? And how much can one book actually address? But when I’m writing, you know, I don’t feel the pressure. I try to like all the stuff that’s going to stop me from writing or or sort of mangle my process. I try to, like, get out of the space before I’m going at it. And you know, sometimes that doesn’t work. But you, you have to write anyway, a lot of the time.

Traci Thomas 28:56
Yeah. Do you remember the first time you saw yourself, like really reflected back in a way that you were, like, excited about?

Tommy Orange 29:03
Like, in a piece of like, art or-

Traci Thomas 29:06
Could be writing, or music, television? I don’t know, just you were saying that, you know, it’s there was a feeling of not being present in those. Yes. I’m just wondering if you remember the first time where you were like, holy shit, that’s me.

Tommy Orange 29:19
I mean, I want to say it took as long as like reservation dogs. It’s just like 2021 like contemporary Native life. There’s a, there’s a ton of like, great fiction that I love. But it doesn’t mean that I saw myself right in it. And there’s a lot of reservation stories and I didn’t grow up in that context. So like I said, no shade to anybody, like I love so much of the cannon. But I didn’t have that feeling of like, okay, that’s that I feel seen, you know, in the moment.

Traci Thomas 30:00
Yeah. Okay, we’re gonna talk about Oakland. I can’t wait. My hometown, your hometown. Your Are you still in Oakland?

Tommy Orange 30:15
Yes. Um, well, I’m back in Oakland, as opposed to still because I was gone for a while I’ve been back to so I thought two years.

Traci Thomas 30:23
And listen, I said this. I’ve said this many times, I felt it so deeply in reading this book. When I read your writing about Oakland, I live in LA now I feel like I’m back home. Like it you’re writing about Oakland is, to me, the best writing I have read about Oakland. I think maybe because we’re similar ages, I think, you know, we have some shared I think feelings about Oakland based on what you’ve read written and what I’ve what I’ve read, but I’m just wondering how you think about Oakland in your work? Will you ever write outside of Oakland? Like, do you have plans to write about other places? Don’t just stay in Oakland forever. But I’m just curious about how Oakland plays into to your process and your creativity?

Tommy Orange 31:11
Well, you know, I think it’s a feel so wrong that Oakland has not. And there are a lot of books that are out there that I don’t know about, and ones that just get less attention, but do exist. But overall, this is just a big general statement. Oakland does not get a lot of love. In the literary world. Like when I was thinking about a novel about Oakland, I had to go back to Gertrude Stein and Jack London. And then like, Ishmael Reed was like a blue blues walk in Oakland was important, too. But he’s not even from Oakland. So there’s 10 billion New York novels, right? And is it because Oakland isn’t fascinating? Obviously, not. is obviously is it because it’s not like doesn’t have good material rich material to write about? Obviously not. So I feel like I’m writing to resist the idea that Oakland is not a place to write about. And it’s also my home, it’s where my memories live. It’s it’s got so much life to it. Complexity, realness, grit, love, like people who love Oakland or from Oakland have, there’s a certain kind of earned love that you have for Oakland. It’s not, it’s not like, because it’s the prettiest, happiest place on earth. It’s, it’s like, it’s because you earned the love and you went through yours. You know, sometimes that were hard, sometimes hard to love Oakland, or, you know, love whatever situation you had going on. So there’s a lot of reasons to love Oakland, I think, you know, my next book is set in Oakland and contemporary. And I imagine if I have a long career, and I keep being able to write, and AI doesn’t take over all creative jobs. I could write about somewhere else. But I, with the absence of the lack of writing about Oakland, if I have the opportunity to that’s what we that’s what I know. And that’s what I’m interested in. That’s probably what I’ll keep writing about. I just finished a screenplay. It’s an original screenplay feature film. For a studio. I don’t think I can say too much about it. But the characters in it are Oakland based even though it’s kind of a road trip thing. There Oakland based did a short film that’s an oak very Oakland short film. And I’m I’m starting to brainstorm with with one of my best friends who’s going to go on the the East Coast part of the book tour with me for wandering stars, we’re starting to dream up a TV series that will be based in Oakland. So the things that I have lined up just immediately it’s all still Oakland because of my love for it. And like I said, the the lack of there being you know, the summer that there there came out blind spotting came out, and sorry to bother you came out. And that felt like instead, I thought it would might be leading to something like Oakland stories, and it felt looking back. I feel like a moment. And so I just you know, we’ve we have the blind spotting TV show. And that was that’s great. But I just feel like there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have some kind of like, consistent work coming out about Oakland by people from Oakland.

Traci Thomas 34:30
Yeah, it’s so interesting, because I feel like Oakland is such a historic place. Like there’s so much nonfiction sort of like history of Oakland, like obviously the Black Panthers. And like, I’m thinking of Phil, I’m thinking of like Fruitvale Station and like the Oscar grants or like, there’s these moments in history that happened in Oakland, but I feel I do feel like Oakland is so devoid of like, getting the fiction treatment. And I mean, I’m even just like thinking about like the sports in Oakland and like worse like so many storied franchises have been in Oakland and now they’re all almost gone the A’s shortly, which is so fucked up, I need to do a whole podcast about how fucked up that is. But it’s just such an interesting place to be in that way. Because I feel like in school, you know, we were taught about Oakland, but so were other people who aren’t in Oakland. And then as I get older, I feel like there’s so little of Oakland that shone like, like through the imagination of Oakland and not just tied to the history. So I really appreciate your work. Obviously, Leila Motley’s book, I’m doing an event which-

Tommy Orange 35:36
I’m sorry to interrupt. You know, I’m doing an event with Leila tomorrow in Santa Cruz.

Traci Thomas 35:41
I love her. I love her so much. But you know, she’s so young. I mean, she’s like the brand new generation of Oakland artists and I just think so much good art and so much good politics and so much good history has come out of Oakland. And yet so little of it is actually like set in Oakland and so I’m just thrilled to see that also. I love the CASPER hotdogs shout out. You did caspers with a K Do you remember Casper is with a see the one by the McDonald’s and the jack in the box? Yeah, that one was my personal favorite.

Tommy Orange 36:11
I think there still is one on Telegraph is now in is that one? Okay. I think that one might be.

Traci Thomas 36:16
That’s the Caspers with the see, but that one is closed like maroon one.

Tommy Orange 36:21
There’s another one near there. The Jack in the Box One is like that isn’t like in the middle of the street. Yeah, like yes, tiny thing. There’s another one near there. But maybe that one? I don’t know. I read the history. There’s a history of it. And there was there was brothers. And there was like this family divide and we’re gonna spell it with a C and we’re gonna spell.

Traci Thomas 36:43
We need that fucking movie novel out of Oakland. Yes, I grew up going to Casper as with the see the little one with my dad like after, after Elementary School, sometimes he would pick me up and be like, we’re gonna go like on a Wednesday and we would get the orange creamsicle soda. And it is like one of my most cherished Oakland memories. And when I saw Casper is obviously one of the K in the book, but I like got emotional. I was like, Oh, my gosh. So it’s just like those little kind of moments are like, just, I don’t know, for people who have never had a book, I guess written in a place that you’re from. Maybe you don’t understand this, but like, it’s just so special because Oakland gets so much shit oaklins Like the big city that gets a lot of shit. And like, I hate it.

Tommy Orange 37:28
I was I was in a gym while I was traveling. And there was just a TV on playing Fox News. And I swear to you for 20 minutes. They were shit talking Oakland, and playing footage of a giant garbage can on fire. And add like a I don’t know what you want to call this guy who was a white, angry white guy that maybe they wanted to make it look like Antiva or something. He was driving his car repeatedly into the dumpster that was on fire. And this was supposed to represent the state of Oakland like how Oakland is just has fallen apart completely. And they just kept showing the same footage of this guy in his Subaru running into a dumpster on fire.

Traci Thomas 38:12
Oh my god. Well, I guess that is a little bit of Oakland to someone in a Subaru driving into a dumpster fire. Sure. But it’s not all about Latin, right. But one of the things Oakland does have that this book has that I’m so I was so curious about. And I think part of the reason I really love the Sean price characteristic because you wrote into this like about race and about like appropriation when it comes to, you know, blackness in Oakland and the native identity and also like this whiteness because Sean’s character is adopted by a white family. And they do like a DNA test. And there’s sort of this like, it’s like the complexity of the diversity of a place like Oakland, where there’s so many people and types of people are at play and in power and also not in power. So I’m wondering how you how you think about, like that part of Oakland, like the racial identity politics of Oakland as something that is either exciting to write about or frustrating to live through or what however you want to approach it.

Tommy Orange 39:13
Yeah, so you know, being biracial, having a white mom, and a native dad growing up on a street in Oakland, where like my best friend was half black, half Italian, my other best friend was half black, half Jewish, and other best friends half Mexican, half Apache, half Irish, half Hawaiian. Like this is like, literally on my block. And we all played together. So like this is, to me, it’s really interesting to write about and there’s a lot of, you know, identity. Some people talk about it like it’s this flimsy, extra thing. But it’s really core to who people are. And a lot of people think they don’t have identity issues, but that they’re just not wanting to look at it or it’s so homogenized that they don’t have to look Got it. They don’t exist on the fringes are in the margins are in between. So they don’t have to think about error doesn’t cut them in ways that make them have to clarify. And so they think it’s this extra thing that people like woke people like to talk about or some nonsense like that. Right. Right. So so for me it was it’s really like, it’s clarifying. And it’s, it’s interesting. And there’s a lot of amazing stuff that isn’t written about about identity and Oakland, such a great vehicle for that and a prism through which to see some of these things because people like Sean price exist here. And, and I especially liked the way Sean price of the way I was able to read about Sean price through this, you know, this sort of class prism, because the Oakland Hills, as I’m sure you know, is its own little snow globe world. And there’s such a stark difference in class and experience between people from up there and, and so him being at this intersection of all these races and not feeling like he belongs to it either. It was just a way to explore a lot of these things that I think about.

Traci Thomas 41:11
When you write in the book, you have all these different characters, and we’re sort of moving between them. And not only do we change like perspectives, but we also change sort of, like tense or I don’t know, I don’t know, I’m the worst writer, you change from like, first person, the third person or whatever, something like that. You have an MFA? I don’t. How is that for you as a writer? Like how do you keep all that shit straight? Because it feels clear as a reader. But I have to imagine like, how do you know when you’re writing from like sort of Oracle’s world and your writing, like, as like, I do this, I do that and then sometimes writing from Ovilus world, and we’re like outside, and we’re looking at what he’s doing. And like, I don’t think a lot of people do that. Usually people decide like I’m in it, or I’m outside of it, but you switch between it and different characters move between it, and it’s just feels very complicated. So I’m wondering how you approach it, how you handle it, how you keep control of it.

Tommy Orange 42:02
Except Yeah, it’s questionable, my control is sometimes questionable. But I do, I do, I use it as a tool to, to figure this a couple of different things that it does. So all my characters get, get this variable POV treatment, when I’m going through revision, especially when I don’t feel like writing, I’ll just assign myself the tedious task to move like, not this, this is going to go from past and present to see if immediacy brings something new. If it brings something to light, if it generates new language, this is a huge piece of of the thing that I the reason that I do it, I will always generate new language when I switch from first to second or third, or when I switch tenses, something new will come about and often it happens while I’m like bored doing this very tedious work of changing is to was is or, you know, changing. He did this too, I did this or you did this, it always does something with language. That’s interesting. And even if I end up changing it back, I might get two sentences that never would have existed. So I get a lot out of doing these changes. And you know, present tense brings in immediacy that sometimes is required to bring the reader into that moment. And sometimes you want to be sort of hovering above. So like third person, Orville, when he first entered 2018, it’s third person. And Orville is like, just recovering. And he’s on drugs. Like he’s sort of detached. He’s like taste, taking pills and playing video games. And we’re sort of learning about some more brutal aspects of his childhood. And I think being immediately to jump into Orville skin, and hear him say this stuff is a little bit too much. So it was also a way to kind of draw the reader into this. Orville is life and his past.

Traci Thomas 43:51
How much are you thinking about audience as you’re writing? Like, who is your audience to you? And how, how do you? How do you think about that?

Tommy Orange 44:01
Well, I think about the reader more. So like, how readable this thing is, I try to I try to consider different ways that the reader might be taking it. Do I need dialogue here? Is this clear enough? Do I need to change this or that so that, that I’ll keep the reader reading with this book, it’s sort of like unavoidable that there will be readers. It’s because, you know, people are gonna want to find out if I how I did on the second try, no matter whether I succeed or fail, it’s a spectacle. So I try not to think about that when in the writing space. It’s, I try to keep it abstract and keep to like, readability. And and think about whether I’m being clear for the general reader.

Traci Thomas 44:55
Okay, well, that was one of my next question. So I might as well ask you. Your first book was a huge fucking success. I don’t think there’s any other way to put it. How does that impact writing this? Like? What’s that like for you? Could you get outside of it? Did it take a while, like, I mean, I feel paralyzed for you, just knowing that you were gonna have to write something else one day. So I’m wondering what that was like for you actually a person who was experiencing and not just my weird imagination.

Tommy Orange 45:24
I mean, I think the first book took six years, six years for much more complicated reasons. You know, I was working, I didn’t even know if I was writing a novel, I was in an MFA. And there was all these life things happening. And I and I didn’t have anybody like asking me for the book either. This time around, I think it took six years, for more complicated reasons, partly the pressure. I don’t know that I was ever, like, paralyzed or had writer’s block. But it took longer to figure things out. And, you know, I was writing it for a year without even knowing this historical piece was going to be in it, we had two years of global pandemic. That was, those were not good times. For me. You know, you hear about some of these writers who like, put out 500 page books because of the pandemic, and everyone kind of secretly hates them for it. I hate them, it wasn’t a good time to write. So just, it’s been a part of it was just a slog. And part of it was not wanting to write the same book, I think, was a bigger challenge than the pressure. I really wanted to. And I did, I think certain drafts were the same book. And I wanted to grow and challenge myself to do different things as a writer. And so if there was anything that made it slower, it was really trying to write something new.

Traci Thomas 46:52
Are you excited now that it is in the world?

Tommy Orange 46:55
I am, there’s this long waiting period between when you’re done, and you have to let it go. Until you hear what people think. And, you know, I’m not one of these people who’s gonna say like, I don’t care what people think I know, whatever, A, B, or C, of what I am. It’s hard being a writer and having a reader is, you know, a shared experience there wouldn’t be writing without readers, and it is a communal experience. And I care. I want to connect with the reader. I don’t need everybody to love it, you know, that would be kind of horrifying. If it was just right. Like, it’s the perfect book, keep going. Like, that’s not helpful. I think engagement with with community and and people you know, feeling ways about it is so not having that is really lonely and scary. And, you know, the period of waiting is really hard. So I’m super happy that it’s out and, and obviously happy to get nice things from like publications, but but the waiting period, and I could feel this big relief. Last night when everything was over, I did an event in the City Arts and lectures with Dave Eggers. And it was it was a really sweet event. And when it was all over, and you know, the day wasn’t a disaster. I just felt this relief of like, okay, it’s out. Like, it’s hard to explain exactly. There’s an intangible quality to it, but it was like the wait is over. It’s out. You know, it doesn’t necessarily need to come with like, a congratulations or pat on the back. It’s more like, like, I don’t have to wait anymore. So that feels good.

Traci Thomas 48:35
Do you? Did you mark it with anything? Like, did you celebrate with like a cupcake or like, a dinner? Or? Like, I don’t know, wearing your favorite pajamas? Like do you mark these moments in any way for yourself?

Tommy Orange 48:46
No, I’m not very good about that. I, you know, I had a great dinner with the City Arts and lecture people, I shared a steak with my 12 year old son. And to that effect that he came was all really nice. And Dave Eggers, like came out of retirement to do the interview. Like he doesn’t do a lot of these things. So I felt really grateful for just for the way that the day went. And so I didn’t necessarily like have anything special.

Traci Thomas 49:17
Okay, well, it sounds special. This is how you’re extra special. What’s the word you cannot spell correctly on the first try?

Tommy Orange 49:24
Oh, there’s so many. I always this isn’t one that I don’t spell right. But But Phoenix is one that I always have to like, say, I have to say fo Enix have to spell it right.

Traci Thomas 49:39
That’s like Feb February for me or wetness day for me. And how do you write how many hours a day how often music or no snacks and beverages that part’s important? Where are you like kind of set the scene for us.

Tommy Orange 49:56
So it’s pretty inconsistent. But my favorite place To write as a hotel room, I’m a morning writer and then a night writer more so like, hours between like 5am. And, and probably like, 11. No, my best. And then I can write again, like, from like nine to probably like, midnight. Those are all good hours.

Traci Thomas 50:18
So you don’t sleep very much.

Tommy Orange 50:21
I usually don’t do both the night writing and tomorrow. Okay, so afternoons are complete garbage for me, I don’t, it’s not necessarily a good time I coffee like, you know, stimulant based. I don’t like have snacks or drinks while I write. It’s, that’s like what I’ll have, once I’ve done the writing to like, reward myself.

Traci Thomas 50:44
And what is the snack reward when you’re done?

Tommy Orange 50:47
Oh, it just depends. There’s no, there’s no consistency. I don’t have a lot of like ritual stuff. But one weird thing is I am a I think it’s called a prone writer.

Traci Thomas 50:59
You lay down.

Tommy Orange 50:59
I’m laying down on like flat on my stomach and chest and like my elbows are propping me up. It’s a really weird thing that started, like my dad laid down a lot when he was watching basketball or TV and, and I would lay down with him. And for a while when I was living in the mountains, my writing space was also my son’s bedroom. And there were there were toys everywhere. And there was no place to write except the I would be writing trying to buy toys on his carpet. So and then, you know, traveling, you know, having to figure out with traveling, having to figure out what times just whenever you can fit it in kind of thing. So I’m inconsistent. But I’ve had to learn to be to figure out when I can do it. I don’t always have a super consistent schedule. And I think if I did, I would have like a better more clear answers for you. And I would, because I do thrive with routine. But right now my life is a little bit chaotic.

Traci Thomas 51:57
This is really a specific question for me, because it’s really more of a request. But do you think you will ever write a book of nonfiction essays? Because I would like you to?

Tommy Orange 52:08
Oh, thank you I’ve for sure I will for sure I will I think I think I have a memoir that I will write I have a lot of family stuff going on right now. That means I can’t at all write about friendly stuff. But for sure, like, then that’s two different things. The essay collection would be something and the memoir would be something else. And and I have a whole bunch of short stories that are already out there. But I have a short circuit election in me as well. So I do you know, I do hope I get to keep writing. And and that is one of the things I would love to work on. Okay, good.

Traci Thomas 52:46
I am I’m eagerly awaiting send me pages.

Tommy Orange 52:49
It’s really, it’s really hard for me to write essay. So I have to like trick myself into doing it. Because, like I like to bring like a fiction like a voice to it. And so I have to trick myself into writing about a particular subject to get into like, the right place because I do I do love writing, once it’s over. I do love writing essay form. And I do love thinking about things in that way. But sometimes I dragged my feet around like, it feels like homework sometimes. And so I have to trick myself.

Traci Thomas 53:22
That’s so interesting. I just could feel essays in you in reading wandering stars. I was like, This person needs to write me some essays. This is a homework assignment. Um, two more questions, and then I’ll let you go. One is for people who love wandering stars, what are some other books you might recommend to them that are in conversation with what you’ve done?

Tommy Orange 53:41
So this book called calling for a blanket dance by Oscar hakea was something that I read that convinced me to do this sort of generational building. You know, how Homegoing does it. A similar thing was traveling through the generations. 100 Years of Solitude inspired me a long time ago. I haven’t read it for a long time. But there’s sort of that generational thing going on. Toni Morrison, I read a lot during the pandemic. I read all of her books during the pandemic. And she the best to me the best writing always grants me some kind of permission to do something I don’t always know what that is. But it sets something free in me gives me the allowance to do something. And her her work sort of does that and also makes me feel like I should not even be trying somehow at the same time. So I feel like I was definitely like trying new things and being inspired by her while I was writing their their love in particular is like a special Song of Solomon. It’s like an obvious masterpiece. But love is kind of holds a special place in my heart and always will What else is in conversation? I’m really bad. You’ve done great books on the spot.

Traci Thomas 55:09
Alright, that’s enough. That’s, that’s amazing. Yeah. You answered you pass the test. Last one. If you could have one person dead or alive read this book, who would you want it to be?

Tommy Orange 55:18
I’m glad you didn’t stop the sentence after the word dead. If you could have one person.

Traci Thomas 55:25
That’s a new question. I just added it. You have one more question?

Tommy Orange 55:31
Maybe James Welch. He’s, he was actually, when you asked me when do I was first seen. When I read winter in the blood, even though it’s a book that’s not in my experience at all. There was something in the spirit of his writing and the way he worked with language that I felt a kinship with. So James Welsh is he’s a native writer, he’s no longer with us. That I would live for. I actually got to meet his wife and hang out in his writing space in Montana. And his wife assured me that he would love he would love my work. So I wouldn’t be able to know if that would be true.

Traci Thomas 56:08
That’s so cool. Well, everyone, you can get your copy of Wandering Stars out in the world now. It exists. It is waiting for you to read it. You can also get There There. If you haven’t read it, read it. I read it. I did not reread it before reading this. And I feel like this book can stand on its own two feet. It is a prequel-sequel, but I think I don’t think you need to read they’re there. I think you want to read they’re there. Because There There is fantastic. But if you’re like, I just want to read this now. I think you can I think you could do it. Tommy, thank you so much for being here.

Tommy Orange 56:36
Yeah. Thank you, Traci. It’s this has been really wonderful.

Traci Thomas 56:40
And everyone else we will see you in The Stacks.

Thank you all so much for listening. And thank you again to Tommy Orange for being our guest. I’d also like to thank Jordan Rodman for helping to make this conversation possible. Don’t forget The Stacks book club pick for March is Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, which we will discuss on Wednesday, March 27. With Elise Hu. If you love the show and you want insight access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join the six pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you’re listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from the stacks you can follow us on social media at the stacks pod on Instagram threads and tick tock and at thestackspod underscore on Twitter. And you can check out our website thestackspodcast.com This episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin MacWrite. The Stacks is created and produced by me Traci Thomas.

Cherie Marquez https://www.cmediacollective.com/
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