Wandering Stars traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Red Feather’s shooting in There There.
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.
Oakland, 2018. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is barely holding her family together after the shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. From the moment he awakens in his hospital bed, Orvil begins compulsively googling school shootings on YouTube. He also becomes emotionally reliant on the prescription medications meant to ease his physical trauma. His younger brother, Lony, suffering from PTSD, is struggling to make sense of the carnage he witnessed at the shooting by secretly cutting himself and enacting blood rituals that he hopes will connect him to his Cheyenne heritage. Opal is equally adrift, experimenting with Ceremony and peyote, searching for a way to heal her wounded family.
First published: 2024
Pages: 336
Genres: Historical Fiction
Amazon Rating: 4.1 out of 1,500 reviews
Our review in brief:
| 1. Rating: 5.2 out of 10 |
| 2. Recommended: Nobody would recommend the book as a whole, but many members felt the first part of the book, which spans 150 years of Native American history, starting with the Sand Creek Massacre, was worth reading. |
| 3. Audience: It would probably appeal to younger readers (in 20s or 30s) who are keen readers and interested in social history. They should be warned that the contents was gruelling in parts. |
| 4. Type of Read: The language of the book was not complex, but the story itself was rambling in parts. The first section on the history, needed to be longer, to allow the characters to develop and the second and third sections, could have had less detail. |
| 5. Quality of the Author: Although the writing was of an acceptable quality, it was felt the structure needed refinement. A couple of members felt it needed a good editor. The pace was inconsistent, and too fast in places. There were also too many characters with very similar names. |
| 6. Other Observations: The book encouraged a number of our members to do more research on the treatment of Native Americans, which we agreed was a very positive outcome. It was a great book for a book club because it lead to some very interesting discussions on the way indigenous populations had been treated across the world. Although the book was supposed to stand up on its own, two members who had read Tommy Orange's first book 'There There..' agreed that this gave the second book 'Wandering Stars' more context a some of the characters were the same. |
| For the first time we also watched a short interview with the author. This may be something we do again in the future. |