The subject matter, though not the prose style, reminds me quite a lot of Alexie: the angst of the urbanized Indian, the conflicted loyalties between the conquered people and the conqueror, the dysfunctional alcoholic families. And I have to say that this works better than most New Yorker novel excerpts, because Orange has apparently worked hard to write a story that has its own dramatic arc independent of the novel it comes from, with a real beginning and ending. Orange is just the kind of writer, and probably person, I would expect to be promoted in the wake of the Alexie flameout: dogged, earnest, responsible, respectful, a hard worker and a good listener.

Now that Sherman Alexie has morphed, seemingly overnight, into the Lord Voldemort of the Native literature world, there seems to be a big movement to “open the door to the next generation of Indian writers”, right when Tommy Orange was standing on the front step. Well, this guy certainly had good timing. How did you like “The State”? Are you interested in There There? Please start and join in the conversation below. If nothing else, I’d like Orange to be a reading buddy.

In his interview with Deborah Treisman ( here), he lists writers he returns to again and again: Borges, Kafka, Robert Walser, John Kennedy Toole, Sylvia Plath, Clarice Lispector, Roberto Bolaño, Louise Erdrich, Álvaro Mutis, Felisberto Hernández, and Andrey Platonov. It should be noted that “The State” is an excerpt from There There, but I’m okay this time since I do genuinely want to see just what we might be getting here. It also notes that early reviews of There There bring up similarities to Erdrich’s style, so that got my attention. This is a good article that goes deeply into each author’s approach to their current trajectory. In a BuzzFeed article Orange is paired with Terese Marie Mailhot as writers “launching a new wave of Native American literature” ( here). I’d never heard of him until The New Yorker tweeted that his story would be appearing this week. His author biography on Penguin Random House’s site says he is an “enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma” and he is a recent MFA grad from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Tommy Orange’s first book, a novel entitled There There, comes out in June. Heads up for a debut author in this week’s magazine.

Sparknotes there there tommy orange