Here is a voice we have never heard--a voice full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with stunning urgency and force. Here is a story of several people, each of whom has private reasons for travelling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie ...

We basically had a hung jury on this book about a dozen Native people in Oakland coming together at a pow-wow to tragic and life-changing results. All of us agreed that Orange asked a very interesting question in the book: what did it mean to be an urban Indian, a Native not based on old stories and history, but born of the trauma and poverty of modern day. There were a number of striking characters and good insights on the trauma of a forgotten people. We all agreed the plot contrivances (e.g. 'That's your father! OMG, I'm sure THAT was my mother') were pretty weak. At that point, opinions differed sharply. Those who liked the book found the cast of a dozen characters rich and moving. The repeated stories of suffering reinforced the tragedy and provided a variety of views that reflected a fractured culture in exactly the way Orange wanted to show it. A lot was made of the fact that 'Native' in the book actually referred to many different tribes who might never have gotten along, and so the multitudes in the book were critical to the view of a broken culture that Orange was arguing. Others at NUBClub felt that the diversity of characters became redundant and made all the characters thin. The Alcatraz scene was great; why couldn't that have been a whole book? Why couldn't we just concentrate on Opal and Jackie, or just Calvin and his gang? At a certain point, the debate circled around the expectations of the book from the description. People who liked the book thought the characters' sufferings were very true to life and vivid; detractors thought the sufferings were exactly what they predicted the book would be about and were disappointed that Orange didn't show more nuanced and surprising takes on the issues. In the end, no bridges formed between these two sides. Some were moved by the book and some were turned off and disconnected by it. It will fall on the reader to form their own opinion of this one.