Tommy Orange is interviewed by Laleh Khadivi

A few days ago, I was fortunate to hear (virtually, of course) the novelist Tommy Orange interviewed by another novelist, Laleh Khadivi, at the university where I teach, the University of San Francisco. Orange is the author of the innovative, powerful novel “There There,” about urban Native Americans living in Oakland, California. I wrote about that novel here on 10/26/18. Laleh Khadivi is the Iranian-American author of “The Kurdish Trilogy” of novels; she teaches at the University of San Francisco. The event was originally supposed to be in person, but like so many other events, had to be postponed, and ultimately ultimately conducted on Zoom, because of the pandemic. Orange spoke candidly about his own background and about the writing of this novel, his first. He wrote that he didn’t really know what a novel was until he read the novels “The Bell Jar,” by Sylvia Plath, and “A Confederacy of Dunces,” by John Kennedy Toole. With both novels, he was impressed by the tragedy and the suicide, but also by the way the novelists created art, created something beautiful. These two novels provided a doorway into many other novels he then read, including by Kafka and Borges. (During the interview, Orange noted Khadivi’s books by Borges in the bookshelf visible behind her. I smiled when he mentioned this, as I, like many other readers, often try during Zoom calls to see what books are on other people’s bookshelves.). Orange spoke of the current moment of auto-fiction, fiction which is close to authors’ own lives, almost memoir. He said it was hard to balance his portraits of the characters in his novel, wanting to be clear and accurate, yet avoiding stereotypes about Native Americans. The two novelists discussed how writing a first novel provides a type of freedom that does not exist when writing ensuing novels, when the writer has to deal with all the expectations of readers and critics. But Orange said he felt he could write the (second) book he wanted to write, and in fact is in the process of writing, and wasn’t worried about whether it would be successful or not; he would be happy just to have written it. The two authors talked about how novels develop in writers’ minds, and how they determine the structure of their novels. They talked about the concept of “tribes,” and about unjust systems of power, both novelists having written about oppressed groups lacking power. Orange made the point that Native Americans want to be seen as nations, not just as American Indians. He said that they have been dehumanized, and in order to be rehumanized, they need their culture, their rituals, and their stories. This conversation between two terrific writers was quietly powerful, even revelatory, and I for one felt privileged to listen in on their discussion, and appreciated so much the level of openness and the insights they shared.