There There by Tommy Orange; narrated by Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Cuervo, and Kyla Garcia (8 hours, Random House Audio); June 5.

The weight of inevitability runs through Tommy Orange’s devastating debut, as he braids together the lives of a dozen “urban Indians” preparing to gather at a big pow-wow in Oakland. A cast of mostly Native American actors tells the story, a choice that feels both right and satisfying. The characters they embody form a prism of modern Native American identity in all its complexity. Alma Cuervo exudes anger and regret as Jacque Red Feather, who hopes to reunite with the children she abandoned. Tony Loneman, whose face is marked by fetal alcohol syndrome, is played with understated grace by Darrell Dennis. Tony refers to his disfigurement as “the Drome”: “There’s too much space between each of the parts of my face — eyes, nose, mouth spread out like a drunk slapped it,” he says. Orange takes no shortcuts here, provides no bumper-sticker slogans and no balm for the guilty white soul, from his searing prologue to the jarring yet inexorable conclusion.