Entertainment
Tommy Orange was against revisiting Native American history in his new book. Why he changed his mind
On the Shelf
Wandering Stars
By Tommy Orange
Knopf Publishing Group: 336 pages, $29
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For Tommy Orange, there was before “There There,” and there was after. Before: He was a struggling writer, teaching in an MFA program. After, the dream: bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize finalist, his book on syllabuses across the country, invited to speak at literary events worldwide. It was a rare and lasting achievement.
His new book, “Wandering Stars,” is also a before and after. This much-anticipated novel serves as both a prequel and a sequel to the first. That unusual choice means it can be read without the centerpiece of 2018’s “There There,” which ended with Orvil, one of the main characters, in peril at a contemporary powwow in Oakland. But if you have read “There There,” it’s an unexpected, multifaceted expansion of that story.
Orange had finished writing “There There” with no intentions of a follow-up when, close to its publication, he heard “Wandering Star” by the band Portishead. “I knew the song already, but something about wandering stars at that moment,” he said over Zoom in January, “I was like, ‘Oh, I want to do a sequel.’
“It had to do with being interested in how Orvil would experience the aftermath of what happened.”
A sequel would give Orange “a way to also talk about historical trauma … tracing through history and feeling the reverberations of something that happened a long time ago,” he added.
To get there, Orange first goes way back, to two boys fleeing the 1864 Sand Creek massacre. The scenes of violence, deprivation and survival in “Wandering Stars” are reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s western frontier novels — only told by Indians, not cowboys. The book comes amid an increased focus on Indigenous representation in media, alongside the FX series “Reservation Dogs” and Martin Scorsese’s Oscar contender “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Lily Gladstone recently became the first Native American to be nominated for the lead actress Oscar for her role in the film).
“It’s an amazing moment,” said Orange, who is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. Aware that Native American stories have emerged and ebbed from the culture before, he’s cautiously optimistic: “I’m hoping this time around we have enough energy to build some kind of sustainable infrastructure that will keep interest in us.”
In the chronological chapters of “Wandering Stars,” Jude Star and Bear Shield’s stories move from one generation to the next and the next, reaching all the way to Orvil and his 21st-century Cheyenne family.
He’s a smart teen in a good school, but he’s on uneasy footing. Some of his friends are screw-ups. He’s more focused on music and video games than schoolwork. And he’s got a prescription for drugs that takes him to a rapturous place, “feeling like the milk of gold was buzzing in his eyes and filling him up.”
When Orvil is high, the prose is often full of pleasure. “I was trying to write something that felt true to what it’s like to experience these different states and what some of the draws are,” Orange said. The subjectivity of experience is something a novel can do that is rarely captured onscreen, and Orange does it, whether he’s bending time or showing what it’s like to float, for a time.
In some ways, the intoxication is an antidote to the torture and loss portrayed in the earlier parts of the book. But it is not disconnected from it; it’s both an aftereffect and a symptom.
Going back to the era of the Indian Wars had not originally been in Orange’s plans. In fact, characters in his books rail against the cliched depictions of Native Americans in vintage settings. “I was against it,” he said. “I really wanted to write only contemporary stuff.” But a series of coincidences changed his mind.
During a chaotic trip to Europe — he’d missed his departure when his backpack was stolen — his Swedish hosts urged him to take a museum tour of their Native American collection. There was acknowledgment that it’s problematic for Native American regalia to be stored away in Sweden, but they thought he’d like to see it.
“It’s a cool little exhibit,” Orange said. “I see this newspaper clipping and it’s Southern Cheyennes in St. Augustine, Fla., in 1875. I know enough about my tribe’s history to know that we were never in Florida.” Down the rabbit hole he went, learning about the Southern Cheyennes who’d been imprisoned there, forced to adopt white culture while abandoning their own.
“I realized St. Augustine was the blueprint for the Carlisle and boarding schools across the country that for decades were about ‘killing the Indian to save the man.’ My tribe being the centerpiece for this made me intensely interested because you don’t often hear about Southern Cheyenne history, specifically,” Orange said. “Doing this research was the moment that I decided I was going to do this historical piece.”
That wasn’t all. Among the prisoners’ names, Orange found a Bear Shield. “Reading that, I was overcome with emotion. I think I cried,” he said. The Bear Shield family is a major part of both “There There” and “Wandering Stars.” “There was the name Star also. And I’d already started writing a character named Star without having known this.” And he’d already had the book’s title; the pieces fit so well, it was as if they’d been laid out there for him.
Part of that, perhaps, is the way he approaches the writing itself, both work and something more ephemeral. “It really feels like a collaboration with a part of you that you don’t necessarily have access to,” he said.
“Writing is kind of a mysterious process. You’re tapping your fingers at letters on a keyboard and all of a sudden, you have an idea that you couldn’t have thought of before. Writing is a form of thinking, but it’s a form of thinking you don’t have access to unless you’re writing.”
While working on “Wandering Stars,” Orange occasionally booked himself into a hotel to focus on writing. Like the esteemed writing retreats Yaddo and MacDowell — both of which he’s been to — it’s a way to have quiet time to type, but right in Oakland. “It’s my favorite place to do it,” he says. And it’s a time to get to access that tricky, elusive part of writing.
“I think writers, you know, want to take credit for everything,” Orange said. “But I feel it’s more mysterious than that.”
Kellogg is a former books editor of the L.A. Times.
The sixth outing in the director’s chair for filmmaker Kirk Jones, I Swear dramatizes the real-life story of touretter John Davidson (played by Robert Aramayo). Tourette’s Syndrome, for those unfamiliar with the condition, is a nervous system disorder that causes various tics, the most prolific being erratic and explicit language. However, as I Swear expertly showcases, the syndrome is far more than ill-timed outbursts of curse words. Davidson’s story is one of societal frustration, finding your people (both with and without the condition), and using your voice to help others rise. The subject and subject matter are handled with absolute care and understanding under Kirk’s measured vision and Robert Aramayo’s BAFTA-winning performance.
The film kicks off with the greatest exclamation to democracy ever uttered (*%#! the Queen!), as a nervous John Davidson prepares himself before entering an awards ceremony hosted by Britain’s royal family. Right away, the film tells us what it is: a triumph over adversity that blends humor and human drama with education. It’s an important setup, as the film flashes back to Davidson’s 1980s youth, where we see his time as a star soccer recruit flatline as his condition takes hold. Davidson’s life spirals from there. Some aspects, like school bullying and accidental run-ins with authority figures, are expected but important to empathizing with young Davidson’s (young version, played with heart by Scott Ellis Watson) new everyday life. The more tragic, a complete meltdown of his family system, is unsettling if quick. His father (Steven Cree) is never given enough screen time to explore his alcohol coping tendencies. However, his mother Heather’s descent into easy fixes and blaming is crushing and convincing. Harry Potter series actress Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle) gives a layered performance as Heather. Someone who loves her son, but also feels cursed by him as the entire family exits the picture. It’s bitter, she’s tired, and fills each conversation with ‘only medication and your mother can save you’ energy.
From there, the viewer and Davidson find refuge in a host of characters. Maxine Peake plays Dottie, the mother of a childhood friend and a retired mental health nurse. Screen vet Peter Mullan plays maintenance man Tommy Trotter. Together, they help Davidson build a life and an understanding of himself that carries the film forward into its second half. After that, the film is primarily a 3-actor show as director Kirk fills the screen with these tour-de-force performances. Peake and Mullan are great vessels to get the film’s main message across: patience, love, and a shared responsibility between the diagnosed and those who understand their struggle can help change the path for people quickly left behind by a normative world. Together, they are the soul of the movie, with the filmmakers clearly hoping the audience will follow their lead after they exit the theater (in my case, the beautiful Oriental Theater for the Milwaukee Film Festival). Both performances are perfectly warm and reflective and shouldn’t be left out in discussions of I Swear.
I say this because the movie is anchored by The Rings of Power actor Robert Aramayo, who leaves Elrond’s elf ears behind to bring an acute naturalism to his performance of main character John Davidson. Aramayo’s physicality and timing of the fitful Tourettes Syndrome never feel out of place or overplayed. In fact, the movie as a whole does an amazing job of never veering into sentimentality. While many moviegoers left with tissues dabbing their eyes, the filmmaking never felt like it was forcing that reaction out of audiences. It straddles the line between feel-good and reality with every story beat and lands squarely on the side of letting the real inform our feelings. Anyone with an ounce of empathy will grasp the film’s message and hopefully take it with them into life.
I Swear continues at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Tuesday, April 21st, and releases nationwide April 24th, 2026, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Several private equity firms and Hollywood power players, including United Talent Agency and longtime agent Patrick Whitesell, have expressed interest in buying parts of Casey Wasserman’s music and sports management firm after it abruptly went up for sale.
Wasserman became ensnared in controversy earlier this year after his salacious decades-old emails to Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, were released as part of the U.S. Justice Department’s trove of Epstein files.
The agency auction is in the early stages, according to three people close to the process but not authorized to comment.
Earlier this week, several interested parties submitted proposals to meet a preliminary deadline in the auction, two of the sources said.
The company, which changed its name to the Team last month, is expected to be valued at around $3 billion.
Providence Equity Partners holds the majority stake. The private equity firm has discussed selling the entire company or carving off Wasserman’s minority interest. Providence also has considered selling the bulk of the firm and staying on as a minority investor, one of the sources said. Another scenario could involve separating, then selling the individual business units that make up the Team.
Wasserman and Providence’s company boasts an enviable roster of music artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran. Its sports marketing practice is viewed as particularly lucrative and has potential to grow in value as big dollars flow into sports that draw large crowds.
Wasserman, who declined to comment, has a veto right over any sale of the company that he has spent a quarter of a century building.
UTA, which also declined to comment, is among the most aggressive suitors, the sources said. The Team’s sports marketing and music representation divisions would dramatically boost the Beverly Hills agency’s profile and client roster.
Whitesell, former executive chairman of Endeavor, separately has been motivated to make investments in sports, media and entertainment since last year when he left the talent agency that he and Ari Emanuel built. Whitesell launched a new firm with seed money from private equity firm Silver Lake, and last spring he started WIN Sports Group to represent professional football players.
Whitesell wasn’t immediately available for comment.
European investment firm Permira also has expressed interest, according to a knowledgeable source. Permira declined to comment.
The New York Times first reported that Permira, UTA and Whitesell had expressed interest.
The sales process is expected to stretch into summer, the knowledgeable people said. The auction could become complicated particularly if Providence decides to unwind the business.
For example, UTA could not buy the entire company because of the Brillstein television unit. The agency is bound by an agreement with the Writers Guild of America that prevents it from owning television production.
Investment bank Moelis & Company is managing the sale. A representative of the firm declined comment.
Wasserman also is the chairman of LA28, the nonprofit group that will be staging the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in two years.
Following revelations of Wasserman’s 2003 emails with Maxwell, several musicians and athletes — led by pop artist Chappell Roan and soccer star Abby Wambach — said that, to stay true to their values, they would leave the agency then known as Wasserman.
Wasserman apologized to his staff for “past personal mistakes” and said he would sell the agency.
He had limited dealings with Epstein, flying on the financier’s jet along with former President Clinton for a September 2002 humanitarian trip through Africa.
Wasserman, a prolific Clinton fundraiser whose legendary grandfather, Hollywood titan Lew Wasserman, helped the Democrat win the 1992 presidential election, was joined on Epstein’s jet by his then-wife, Laura, actor Kevin Spacey, Epstein, Maxwell — who was convicted of sexual abuse in 2021 — and others, including security agents.
The LA28 board’s executive committee unanimously voted to keep Wasserman as chairman, citing his “strong leadership” of the Games.
Pizza Movie (2026) Director: Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, Star: Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone
Somehow, I got through an hour of this movie. I was seconds away from turning off in the first fifteen minutes because of the juvenile humor. Pizza Movie is too silly, repetitive, and the characters are annoying. Stranger Things Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone star as college friends, Jack and Montgomery. College angles are rarely seen in films right now, and that’s the one saving grace of the film. Similar to high school, people are also trying to fit in. The story and visuals were too corny. You can only watch someone’s head exploding for so long without letting yours.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, Stars: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy
I never saw the first Super Mario Brothers Movie when it was out, but I heard it got positive reviews. My brother always loved playing Super Mario video games as a kid, and I’d watch him. I tagged along with my friends to see Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it’s a cute and fun film. I like it when movies explore the video game world. The animation creates unique worlds and characters. The characters are split into their own storylines, and for me, I felt like it worked. It adds more action, especially for kids who are seeing the films.
Emily in Paris Season 5 (2025) Creator: Darren Star, Stars: Lily Collins and Ashley Park
After a bright spot in season 4, I thought season 5 of Emily in Paris would continue its growth in the story and its protagonist, but no, it’s all drained out in the usual Emily (Lily Collins) mishaps. Ashley Park (Mindy) has become too good for this show. Emily and Mindy waste several opportunities because of their love lives. The whole relationship angle is ruining it. I don’t understand why Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) is still in the show. I thought writers learned their lesson, but by the last episode, they’re continuing to bring the past into an apparent season 6.
Sarah’s Oil (2025) Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stars: Naya Desir-Johnson and Zachary Levi
There’s always history lurking right beneath our noses. Sarah’s Oil (2025) tells the true story of Sarah Rector, an Oklahoma-born African American girl who became the first black female millionaire in the U.S. Naya Desir-Johnson is fierce and driven as Sarah. Zachary Levi is also along for the ride as Bert, a man who helps Sarah. Kate (Bridget Regan) was another favorite character as an intelligent woman. Cyrus Nowrasteh was drawn to the subject for its story and its themes. Nowrasteh’s direction is compelling as he unearths a hidden story from history. The film is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Jack Goes Boating (2014) Director and Star: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan
Jack Goes Boating (2014) didn’t quite work for me, largely because of its slow pace and uneven storytelling. The film stars the late Seymour Hoffman as Jack, who also directed the film. This was Hoffman’s first and only time in the directing chair. Amy Ryan also stars in the film, giving a solid performance. This was also based on a play that Hoffman starred in. Jack wants to participate in a swim championship. That’s hardly what the film is about, tracking other characters’ stories. While the film aims for quiet intimacy, it ultimately drags, making it an underwhelming viewing experience.
You Kill Me (2016), Director: John Dahl, Stars: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson
Meet You Kill Me (2016), yet another film that I found in the museum of underrated gems. The concept revolves around Frank (Ben Kingsley), a hitman, who is sent to an A.A. meeting to get his mind focused again. A different story happens, where Frank falls in love with Laurel (Tea Leoni). Leoni is one of my favorite actresses. It also stars the funny Luke Wilson. I liked the trio’s dynamics. You Kill Me is a mental health movie. It’s okay to make changes if you’re not happy. I recommended that you keep an eye out for this movie.
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