Olivia: Alright Jackson, we’re diving into a heavy one today. If you had to review this book in just five words, what would they be? I’ll go first. History's ghost haunts every page. Jackson: Ooh, that’s good. Mine would be: Beautiful, brutal, broken, but breathing. Olivia: Wow. That perfectly captures the tension at the heart of it. We are talking about Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. It’s a follow-up to his massively acclaimed novel There There, but it absolutely stands on its own as this sweeping, multi-generational saga. Jackson: And the story behind him writing it is fascinating. I heard he wasn't even planning on writing a historical novel. Olivia: Exactly. Tommy Orange, who is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, has spoken about his resistance to writing about Native Americans in the past tense, which he felt was an overdone trope. But then he had this serendipitous visit to a museum in Sweden. He saw these Native artifacts and was struck by the museum's awareness of its problematic history, and it sparked this idea to connect that deep, painful past directly to the contemporary urban Native experience he’s known for. Jackson: So he’s deliberately bridging that gap between the history books and life in Oakland today. That already feels powerful. Where does this historical story begin? What’s the wound that opens the book? Olivia: It begins with one of the most brutal and systematic wounds in American history. The book throws us right into the mid-19th century, an era defined by a chilling, calculated project of dehumanization.

Jackson: Dehumanization is a strong word, but I get the sense it’s the right one here. What did that look like? Olivia: It looked like policy. It looked like slogans that became licenses for violence. The prologue of Wandering Stars is unflinching. It lays out the phrases that were used to justify massacres. One of the most horrifying is "nits make lice." Jackson: Whoa. Hold on. "Nits make lice." They're talking about children. They’re saying that to justify killing children because they’ll grow up to be adults. That’s not just a phrase; it's a blueprint for genocide. Olivia: It is. And it was used to justify atrocities like the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, where hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly women and children, were slaughtered by U.S. soldiers. This is where we meet our first character, a young Cheyenne man named Bird. He survives the massacre, but the experience is so traumatic it literally steals his voice. He becomes mute. Jackson: So his silence isn't just a choice, it's a physical manifestation of the trauma? His voice was literally killed along with his people. Olivia: Precisely. The trauma becomes embedded in his body. And it doesn't end there. After the physical wars, the strategy shifted to cultural warfare. This is where the book introduces the infamous motto of Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School: "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." Jackson: I’ve heard that phrase before, but I don't think I ever fully grasped its horror. It’s this twisted, perverse logic—we'll 'save' you by destroying everything that makes you you. Olivia: And the book shows us exactly how that was done. Bird, the survivor, is captured and sent to a prison-castle in Florida called Fort Marion. It’s run by Richard Henry Pratt himself, and it becomes the prototype for the entire Indian boarding school system. The prisoners' hair is cut, their traditional clothes are replaced with military uniforms, and they are forbidden from speaking their language. They are forced to learn English by reading the Bible. Jackson: The irony is staggering. Using a holy book to enforce a policy of cultural annihilation. How does Bird, now mute, even navigate that? Olivia: He learns to read faster than the others, finding a strange solace in the written word. And in a moment of profound, heartbreaking irony, he renames himself. He chooses the name Jude Star, inspired by a verse from the Book of Jude he reads in the Bible. It describes "wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." Jackson: That gives me chills. He finds his new identity inside the very tool of his oppression, and he chooses a name that perfectly describes his feeling of being lost, of being a displaced star in an endless darkness. That’s the architecture of trauma you mentioned—it’s not just an event, it’s a structure that gets built inside of you. Olivia: Exactly. The violence isn't just external; it's internalized. It reshapes your identity, your voice, your very name. And Pratt's methods, honed at Fort Marion, were then scaled up across the country in boarding schools where, as the book notes, Native children had the same chance of dying as a soldier in a world war. Jackson: That’s a devastating foundation. It makes you wonder how anyone could build a life, let alone a future, on top of that. How does this 'architecture of trauma' echo into the present day, into the lives of his descendants in Oakland?

Olivia: That’s the central question of the entire novel. The story jumps forward over a century to 2018 Oakland, and we meet Orvil Red Feather, Jude Star’s direct descendant. The echo of that history isn't just a memory; it's a living, breathing thing inside him. Jackson: How so? Is it just a sad backstory he knows about, or is it more tangible? Olivia: It’s incredibly tangible. Orvil is a survivor of the powwow shooting from Orange’s first novel, There There. And the doctors decide it's too risky to remove the bullet. So he lives with a star-shaped bullet shard wandering inside his body. Jackson: Wait, a star-shaped shard? So the "wandering star" from the Bible verse that named his ancestor becomes a literal, physical, wandering piece of metal inside his own body. That's incredible symbolism. Olivia: It’s a masterful connection across generations. The historical, metaphorical wound becomes a contemporary, physical one. And just like his ancestor, Orvil struggles. He descends into an opioid addiction to numb the pain, both physical and psychological. He feels disconnected, lost, a modern-day wandering star. Jackson: So we see the trauma passed down—the violence, the pain, the coping through addiction. But the book is also about resilience, right? Where does that come in? It can't all be darkness. Olivia: It's not. But the book argues that resilience isn't a clean, heroic journey. It's messy, it's contradictory, and it often happens in the most unexpected places. For Orvil, it happens at an underground rave. Jackson: A rave? That seems like the last place you’d find cultural healing. Olivia: That's the brilliance of it. He’s there, high on a drug cocktail, surrounded by loud electronic music. And suddenly, his body starts to move on its own. He begins to perform a powwow dance, involuntarily. He’s embarrassed, he can’t stop it, but it’s happening. In a bathroom stall, with the music muffled like a drum, he hears what feels like ancestral voices in his head, saying, "You are our instruments," and "We left everything with you." Jackson: Wow. So it’s like his heritage, his culture, is literally fighting its way out of him, even through the haze of drugs. It’s not some pure, clean moment of 'connecting with the ancestors.' It’s chaotic and confusing and happens in a space of total alienation. Olivia: Exactly. It’s reclamation, but it's messy. It’s not about finding a perfect, unbroken tradition. The tradition was broken. This is about creating a new song from the broken instruments. It’s about the culture finding a way to breathe, even in the most poisoned air. Jackson: That makes so much sense. And it probably explains the book's structure, too. It’s highly acclaimed, it won the prestigious Aspen Words Literary Prize, but some readers have found it challenging. They say it feels fragmented, more like a collection of vignettes than a single plot. Olivia: I think you’re right. That fragmentation feels like the whole point. How can you tell a linear, cohesive story about a people whose history has been systematically shattered? The narrative form mirrors the fragmented lives and memories of the characters. It forces the reader to piece things together, just as the characters are trying to piece themselves together. Jackson: So the book isn't just telling you about trauma, it's making you experience the disorientation of it. That’s a bold literary choice. Olivia: It is. And it’s what makes the moments of connection—like Orvil’s dance, or his brother Lony’s strange rituals, or their great-aunt Opal’s quiet strength—so incredibly powerful. They are small lights flickering in that "blackness of darkness" Jude Star named himself after.

Jackson: When you put it all together, the line from the 1864 massacre to a rave in 2018 Oakland feels so direct, so unbroken. Olivia: That’s the core message of Wandering Stars. History is not the past. It’s a ghost that lives in the body. It's the silence in Jude’s throat and the bullet in Orvil’s chest. But the book’s ultimate power isn't just in showing us the wound; it's in showing us the fierce, complicated, and beautiful struggle to live with the scar. Jackson: It’s not about finding a cure for the past. Olivia: No, you can't cure history. It’s about finding a way to carry it without being crushed by it. It’s about learning to make a new kind of music, a new kind of meaning. The characters are called "wandering stars," and we see them as lost. But maybe they aren't just lost. Maybe they are navigating by a different light, one they have to create for themselves out of memory, and pain, and love, and a distorted guitar riff. Jackson: That’s a really hopeful way to look at it. It makes you think... what parts of our own history, personal or collective, are we still carrying in our bodies? And what 'new song' are we trying to create from it? Olivia: That is the question the book leaves you with. It’s a profound and necessary one. We encourage everyone to reflect on that. Think about the stories, seen and unseen, that have shaped you. If you feel moved, share your thoughts with us on our social channels. We’d love to hear how the idea of history living in the present resonates with you. Jackson: A powerful, challenging, and ultimately unforgettable read. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.