In our discussion with Kaveh Akbar about his novel Martyr! last month, Kaveh mentioned that he and Tommy Orange, author of Wandering Stars, traded pages every Friday as they wrote their novels. As you’re reading Wandering Stars, have you noticed any influence from Martyr! or vice versa? How are these friends and authors both similar and different in their writing style?
Also, the prologue and first several chapters of Wandering Stars not only set up the novel but provide us with the important history of how American colonial settlers orchestrated and executed the genocide of the indigenous people already living on the land. Did you learn anything new from these opening chapters? How did this painful history affect you? What parallels, if any, do you see with modern conflicts around the world, including Yemen, Ukraine, Gaza, Haiti, and Sudan?
What I appreciated most about the prologue was how unsettling it was, a stark reminder of just how brutal the colonization of this country was. You think you know until you are confronted by writing like this, and you realize your knowledge barely scratches the surface of a given subject.
In the opening chapters, I kept wondering if there was any peace or safety to be found, also unsettling, but in a productive way. The early going in this novel really pulled me in and held my attention.
As someone who lives in Colorado, the prologue was startling and revelatory. I had no idea about the Sand Creek Massacre. It was a powerful reminder to me of what has happened on this land I occupy.
There’s something so intimate about the almost stream of consciousness positioning of the first few chapters. He describes awful things with the same frankness with which all experience happens. It’s brutal and arresting.
As a white woman, everything about Pratt forces me to soberly ask where my good intentions are actually weapons of violence.
The Prologue was brilliantly written; enough to provide someone with the important historical context no matter how much or little they know about this period and with such elegance. Then he drops us immediately into scene with the first chapter without the reader feeling disoriented by the questions about when and where we are. I was reminded of two different books this seems in conversation with and Tea Obreht's INLAND (especially when I read about the camels) and a new nonfiction book about the Knights of the Forest by Cathy Coats, TO BANISH FOREVER: A SECRET SOCIETY, THE HO-CHUNK AND ETHNIC CLEANSING IN MINNESOTA. Both counter the dominant narrative that it was the "government" which carried out genocide against Native Americans and both bring in the connections to the Civil War and white supremacy. As the great-granddaughter of homesteaders on Red Lake Nation land, I see a lot of parallels with contemporary conflicts at home (housing insecurity, medical injustice, economic inequality.....) and abroad (Yemen, Ukraine, Gaza, Haiti and Sudan; also Somalia and the rest of colonized North Africa, Puerto Rico, Guam. US Virgin Islands....) and the need for long overdue reparations has never been clearer.
Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange have some similar writing styles. The sentences that twist and take a turn. The matter-of-fact details of traumatic childhoods of their protagonists; both mothers up and left, both fathers chased their personal demons. I watched a NYT interview with Orange and even some of his mannerisms reminded me of the Akbar you were in conversation with last month. Tommy Orange is coming to the Santa Fe International Book Festival this year and I look forward to his session.
I’d read There There and appreciated the family tree at the beginning of his book. Also, the opening dedication got me in the gut as a recovering alcoholic child of an alcoholic. The prologue of Wandering Stars put me right in the thick of things. I didn’t realize Roosevelt used Native Americans for his Inaugural procession and the motif of NA as entertainer hit hard.
I liked the stark manner of describing survival skills like eating the horse and dog while reminding us of the killing of the bison. He doesn’t pussy foot around for the entertainment of his readers.
I got stuck at Carlisle school - Puerto Ricans were also held /imprisoned there to also make them “American” and there is this thread of grief- of inter generational trauma that I witness at work among the staff - among the people we serve- and also the trauma of connection of knowing that we are part of this large web of genocide attempts over and over
I ravenously read Wandering Stars, finishing yesterday minutes before my plane landed at my home airport. Most explicitly, like Akbar, Orange thanked us, his readers for giving our time and interest to read their works (a very thoughtful gesture, I think). And of course, both authors provide descriptions of addiction (the mindset, the behaviors, the consequences) in profound ways--their approaches unique but their aim similar, I believe, which is to make the invisible visible. Making the invisible visible is how we learn to recognize addiction in ourselves, others, and society in general. I noticed that both authors used a "run on" or continuous sentence style at times (new to me as a mostly nonfiction, academic reader). Perhaps it was a stylistic feature of the large print additions of both books I've purchased, but I noticed both authors used bolding? (did others have that in their versions!?) Of course, we also see the similarity of different chapters being different characters/voices.
What I appreciated most about the prologue was how unsettling it was, a stark reminder of just how brutal the colonization of this country was. You think you know until you are confronted by writing like this, and you realize your knowledge barely scratches the surface of a given subject.
In the opening chapters, I kept wondering if there was any peace or safety to be found, also unsettling, but in a productive way. The early going in this novel really pulled me in and held my attention.
As someone who lives in Colorado, the prologue was startling and revelatory. I had no idea about the Sand Creek Massacre. It was a powerful reminder to me of what has happened on this land I occupy.
There’s something so intimate about the almost stream of consciousness positioning of the first few chapters. He describes awful things with the same frankness with which all experience happens. It’s brutal and arresting.
As a white woman, everything about Pratt forces me to soberly ask where my good intentions are actually weapons of violence.
The Prologue was brilliantly written; enough to provide someone with the important historical context no matter how much or little they know about this period and with such elegance. Then he drops us immediately into scene with the first chapter without the reader feeling disoriented by the questions about when and where we are. I was reminded of two different books this seems in conversation with and Tea Obreht's INLAND (especially when I read about the camels) and a new nonfiction book about the Knights of the Forest by Cathy Coats, TO BANISH FOREVER: A SECRET SOCIETY, THE HO-CHUNK AND ETHNIC CLEANSING IN MINNESOTA. Both counter the dominant narrative that it was the "government" which carried out genocide against Native Americans and both bring in the connections to the Civil War and white supremacy. As the great-granddaughter of homesteaders on Red Lake Nation land, I see a lot of parallels with contemporary conflicts at home (housing insecurity, medical injustice, economic inequality.....) and abroad (Yemen, Ukraine, Gaza, Haiti and Sudan; also Somalia and the rest of colonized North Africa, Puerto Rico, Guam. US Virgin Islands....) and the need for long overdue reparations has never been clearer.
Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange have some similar writing styles. The sentences that twist and take a turn. The matter-of-fact details of traumatic childhoods of their protagonists; both mothers up and left, both fathers chased their personal demons. I watched a NYT interview with Orange and even some of his mannerisms reminded me of the Akbar you were in conversation with last month. Tommy Orange is coming to the Santa Fe International Book Festival this year and I look forward to his session.
I’d read There There and appreciated the family tree at the beginning of his book. Also, the opening dedication got me in the gut as a recovering alcoholic child of an alcoholic. The prologue of Wandering Stars put me right in the thick of things. I didn’t realize Roosevelt used Native Americans for his Inaugural procession and the motif of NA as entertainer hit hard.
I liked the stark manner of describing survival skills like eating the horse and dog while reminding us of the killing of the bison. He doesn’t pussy foot around for the entertainment of his readers.
I got stuck at Carlisle school - Puerto Ricans were also held /imprisoned there to also make them “American” and there is this thread of grief- of inter generational trauma that I witness at work among the staff - among the people we serve- and also the trauma of connection of knowing that we are part of this large web of genocide attempts over and over
I appreciate this so much. Thanks.
I ravenously read Wandering Stars, finishing yesterday minutes before my plane landed at my home airport. Most explicitly, like Akbar, Orange thanked us, his readers for giving our time and interest to read their works (a very thoughtful gesture, I think). And of course, both authors provide descriptions of addiction (the mindset, the behaviors, the consequences) in profound ways--their approaches unique but their aim similar, I believe, which is to make the invisible visible. Making the invisible visible is how we learn to recognize addiction in ourselves, others, and society in general. I noticed that both authors used a "run on" or continuous sentence style at times (new to me as a mostly nonfiction, academic reader). Perhaps it was a stylistic feature of the large print additions of both books I've purchased, but I noticed both authors used bolding? (did others have that in their versions!?) Of course, we also see the similarity of different chapters being different characters/voices.