PORTLAND, Ore. — January 2, 2020. Multnomah County Library invites the community to participate in Everybody Reads 2020, featuring Tommy Orange’s debut novel about the urban Native experience, There There.
Free copies of There There are available to pick up at all library locations without a library card (while supplies last), or download the e-book or audiobook from the library catalog. The library encourages readers to discuss the book, and share their copies with friends, coworkers and neighbors.
The Multnomah County Board of County Commissioners will formally recognize Everybody Reads 2020, and the library's efforts to support Native voices, by issuing a proclamation during the Multnomah County Board meeting on Thursday, January 9.
The library will host a series of events from January 15 through March 5, to support discussion of the book and its themes. Events will be presented by members of the local Native community. View the full event schedule.
Orange will speak on Thursday, March 5 at 7:30 pm at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets are available from Literary Arts.
"For too long, the urban Native experience has been overlooked," said Multnomah County Director of Libraries Vailey Oehlke. "There There is a memorable and transparent story that explores the resilient search for identity and belonging while carrying the weight of inherited trauma."
There There offers a series of gripping portraits and perspectives of Native people in urban America, told by twelve characters traveling to Oakland for a powwow, each of them contending with issues of identity, memory and belonging.
There There was selected as a 2019 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Fiction and was honored as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018 by the editors of The New York Times Book Review, among other accolades.
Tommy Orange is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, he was born and raised in Oakland, California, and currently lives in Angels Camp, California.
Everybody Reads, a community reading project of Multnomah County Library, is made possible in part by The Library Foundation with author appearance made possible by Literary Arts.
