OBOC 2023: About There There by Tommy Orange

There There by Tommy Orange follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. They converge and collide on one fateful day at the Big Oakland Powwow and together this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American - grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. 

There There was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and has received many accolades including being named a Pen/Hemingway Award Winner, Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, and New York Times Best Book of the Year. 

Copies of There There are available at CPL locations in a variety of formats including print, eBook, large print, downloadable audiobook and audiobook CD. The book is available in English, Spanish, Korean and Polish.