Colorado, 1864, Star survives a massacre of the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians at the hands of mounted cavalry. Stripped of his ability to speak, the young boy is imprisoned in Florida where he learns English, learns to write, and finds his own interpretation of the Christian God.
Decades later, Star's son Charles, a mixed race man, navigates the changing face of America, envisioning a future free of the institutional violence of a childhood spent in a brutal residential school. Over the next three generations, Star's descendants face systemic racism, addictions, poverty and violence, arriving in modern day California with Opal, a mail carrier struggling to raise her three great nephews alone.
After a shooting at the powwow, 14 year old Orvil battles with a prescription pain killer addiction, while Lony, still a child, deals with the PTSD from the event by cutting, hoping to enact an ancient Indian ritual to protect his family. Opal's sister Jacquie, the children's blood grandmother, is back home, newly sober, but life for the brothers is complicated by generational trauma and Orvil's truncated recovery.
Wandering Stars is poetic and timeless, with unique unique characters that reflect universal experiences, making this novel a compelling and thought-provoking read.
