Order of Tommy Orange Books

Tommy Orange is an American author best known for the New York Times Bestselling book There There. Tommy graduated from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts and both a 2014 MacDowell Fellow, and a 2016 Writing by Writers Fellow.

Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, and that part of his heritage helps to inform much of his writing in There There. His father was Cheyenne and his mother was white, with his mother converting him to Christianity and denouncing his father’s Native American beliefs. This struggle that he went through as a boy informs much of the writing in his first novel. There There is considered one of the best pieces of writing in 2018 and will be awarded as so.

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

If You Like Tommy Orange Books, You’ll Love…

• Lauren Groff
• Rebecca Makkai
• Jacqueline Woodson

There There tells the story of the Big Oakland Powwow and the reasons that every person in attendance is there. Everyone has their own reasons for attending, from generous to fearful to violent, and they will all converge and collide on the day of the event. The event is meant to be a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry, but as the tension builds throughout the night things aren’t going to end as happy as they should.

This book tells the story of what it is like for a people to inhabit a land that is both theirs and was stolen from them. The weight of belonging and unbelonging, battling with each other. This book is shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen and is already being praised as an instant classic. Orange’s debut novel grapples with the complex and painful history of Native Americans while keep it relatable with profound spirituality and tales of abuse and addiction. A stunning first novel.