Me and Tommy Orange

 In good company at Eras Bookstore

Thanks to the way bookshops and libraries organize books, I'm butting up against one of my favorite authors! I couldn't ask for a better position. We even happen to be color coordinated. 😃

To cap off my novel's birthday month I spent the afternoon at this new bookstore in Oxford, Michigan.

Tell me that checkered tablecloth isn't corny as all get-out?! Like I'm at a picnic. I meant to buy a plain black one but time got away from me.

Finally, I just want to say that because of the power of "local", independent bookstores are growing in number and popularity, helping their communities and the authors they support. Bookshop is the best way to access your own favorite local bookstore.

Onwards and upwards in this pursuit of the written word, doing what we all love best. 

Yvonne

Human

There There

This is an astounding literary accomplishment I highly recommend. I recently posted a review on Goodreads which I seldom do, and thought I'd share it here.

 "There There" opens with a true account of the so-called Indian Wars. A look at the underside of our rewritten history. You will never again feel the same about Thanksgiving. 

 In 1621 when the colonists invited the chief of the Wampanoags to a feast, it wasn't a thanksgiving meal. It was a land-deal meal. And two years later when there was a similar meal meant to symbolize eternal friendship, "two hundred Indians dropped dead from an unknown poison ."

And so the slaughter begins.

In 1637 several hundred Pequot gathered for their annual Green Corn Dance. "Colonists surrounded their village, set it on fire, and shot any Pequot who tried to escape. The next day the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a feast in celebration and the governor declared it a day of thanksgiving. Thanksgivings like these happened everywhere, whenever there were what we have to call successful massacres."

These are just two examples Tommy Orange relates to shine the light on what really happened four-hundred years ago, continuing (in a more 'civilized' manner) through the nineteen hundreds to present day. His is a voice never heard before.

Writing of the plight of the urban Native American, the story centers around twelve characters in Oakland, California struggling to reconcile their identity with what they know of their ancestral past (this land was once ours). For various reasons, they travel to and converge at the Big Oakland Powwow where their stories connect in a climatic way.

This is a gut-wrenching story that grapples with our painful history in a never-before published fashion, laying bare what was done to fulfill the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. I think it should be required reading in schools and universities across the country.