Wandering Stars
“I think most sequels are bad.” This is what a character in Tommy Orange’s new novel, Wandering Stars, says. This character — like other characters in the second half of this book — was originally introduced to readers in Orange’s much-lauded debut, There There. So that’s kind of interesting since Wandering Stars is a sequel of sorts. But Wandering Stars is also a prequel in that we get three generations of history — and “explanation,” if you will — of these characters in the first half of Orange’s second novel. On a surface level, this is Orange’s attempt at making sense of addiction and why some people might fall under its curse. But specifically, he’s tracing a trail from the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to a family of “urban Indians” in Oakland. He is offering up detailed origin stories for Jacquie, Orvil, Opal, as well as Loother and Lony — all from There There.
What I’m wondering: What does it mean that I wanted more of the beginning, the prequel? I thought like Opal: “It was one thing to be grateful for the ancestors, and another thing to know them on the page.” I don’t think sequels are necessarily bad, and I certainly don’t think that Orange is positing that Wandering Stars is “bad.” (It’s not!) But what to make of my desire for less sequel, more prequel? I don’t think my reading of the text this way points to something symbolic like I’d rather read about initial tragedy than the outcome. I know that would be easy to point to — like, don’t make me have to engage with the aftermath of forced schooling and assimilation and violence toward Native populations — but I really don’t think that’s it.
So: What does it mean when we want something different than what an author is offering up? The explanation can be as simple, of course, as everyone likes different things and you’re just not aligned with the author this time. But I also wonder if sometimes this might just be a litmus test for being a flexible reader. And to the point: Is “flexibility” a key quality of a “good” reader? So I kept with it — and once I reached a point with about 50 pages left, I was *incredibly* glad I did. #amflexible?
originally published on instagram