Peter Orner

This National Book Critics Circle Award is “an entrancing attempt to catch what falls between: the irreducibly personal, messy, even embarrassing ways reading and living bleed into each other, which neither literary criticism nor autobiography ever quite acknowledges" (The New York Times). “Stories, both my own and those I’ve taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I’ve become,” Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads and writes everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir. Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, working at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris--about whom almost nothing is known. An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.

Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live

Am I Alone Here?

In this powerful and virtuosic collection of interlocking stories, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist takes the form to new heights. In his orchestral and moving new book, Peter Orner, a writer who "doesn't simply bring his characters to life, he gives them souls" (New York Times Book Review), chronicles people whose lives are at inflection points. In forty-four compressed gems, he grips us with a series of defining moments. Whether it's a first date that turns into a late-night road trip to a séance in an abandoned airplane hangar, or a family's memories of the painful mystery surrounding a forgotten uncle's demise, Orner reveals how our fleeting decisions between kindness and abandonment chase us across time. These stories are anchored by a poignant novella that delivers not only the joys and travails of a forty-year marriage, but an entire era in a working-class New England city. Bristling with the crackling energy of life itself, Maggie Brown & Others marks the most sustained achievement to date for "a master of his form" (New York Times).

Stories

Maggie Brown & Others

Notes in the Margin

Still No Word from You

The interactions of four generations of the Popper family reveal the ways in which love, memory, and connections can make individuals whole or completely unravel them.

A Novel

Love and Shame and Love

Tom Andes

Using personal narratives of illegal aliens, describes the risks and challenges that face those immigrating to the United States illegally, including human trafficking, discrimination, and deportation.

Narratives of Undocumented Lives

Underground America

"A ravishing collection, full of wisdom, grief, beauty, and especially surprise."--Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collectors Peter Orner zeroes in on the strange ways our memories define us: A woman's husband dies before their divorce is finalized; a man runs for governor of Illinois and loses much more than an election; two brothers play beneath the infamous bridge at Chappaquiddick. Employing the masterful compression for which he has been widely praised, Orner presents a kaleidoscope of individual lives viewed in startling, intimate close-up. Whether writing of Geraldo Rivera's attempt to reveal the contents of Al Capone's vault or of a father and daughter trying to outrun a hurricane, Orner illuminates universal themes. In stories that span considerable geographic ground--from Chicago to Wyoming, from Massachusetts to the Czech Republic--he writes of the past we can't seem to shake, the losses we can't make up for, and the power of our stories to help us reclaim what we thought was gone forever.

Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge

Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives

Hope Deferred

¿Hay alguien ahí?

Annie Holmes

'I am Elizabeth. I wish I could use my real name, because the situation in Zimbabwe is real. It would be better for those back home to know it was me.' The situation in Zimbabwe represents one of the worst humanitarian emergencies today. This book asks the question: How did a country with so much promise - a stellar education system, a growing middle class, a sophisticated economic infrastructure, a liberal constitution, an independent judiciary, and many of the trappings of western democracy - go so wrong? It asks the people who know this complicated story best - the Zimbabwean people who have endured (and hoped) across the decades to tell their side of this story. From refugees in South Africa and Canada to those trying to continue living inside Zimbabwe, from farms, to rural Murambinda and the city of Harare, in their own words they recount their experiences of losing their homes, land, livelihoods and families as a direct result of political violence. They describe being tortured in detention, firebombed at work, beaten up or raped to 'punish' votes for the opposition. This book includes Zimbabweans of every age, class and political conviction, from farm labourers to academics, doctors to artists, opposition leaders to ordinary Zimbabweans; men and women simply trying to survive as a once-thriving nation heads for collapse. 'I am Elizabeth. I wish I could use my real name, because the situation in Zimbabwe is real. It would be better for those back home to know it was me.' The situation in Zimbabwe represents one of the worst humanitarian emergencies today. This book asks the question: How did a country with so much promise - a stellar education system, a growing middle class, a sophisticated economic infrastructure, a liberal constitution, an independent judiciary, and many of the trappings of western democracy - go so wrong? It asks the people who know this complicated story best - the Zimbabwean people who have endured (and hoped) across the decades to tell their side of this story. From refugees in South Africa and Canada to those trying to continue living inside Zimbabwe, from farms, to rural Murambinda and the city of Harare, in their own words they recount their experiences of losing their homes, land, livelihoods and families as a direct result of political violence. They describe being tortured in detention, firebombed at work, beaten up or raped to 'punish' votes for the opposition. This book includes Zimbabweans of every age, class and political conviction, from farm labourers to academics, doctors to artists, opposition leaders to ordinary Zimbabweans; men and women simply trying to survive as a once-thriving nation heads for collapse.

Voices Of Zimbabwe

Don't Listen To What I'm About To Say

Leopoldine Core

Brian Davis

Naben Ruthnum

Andrew Sullivan

Megan Stielstra

Katya Apekina

Tobias Carroll

Kate Durbin

Amanda Ackerman

Daniel Mueller

Spencer Gordon

Tamar Halpern

Shawn Syms

Joyland is an online and print literary magazine that selects fiction regionally. Praised for its unique approach by Time Out, the Atlantic, and the CBC, Joyland now brings its best stories into print with Retro Vol. 1. Issue 2. From writers both emerging and acclaimed come short stories about an indie Abraham Lincoln film that's heading towards disaster, a Miley Cyrus fan defending his unending obsession, and what happens when a woman tries to break up with the Incredible Hulk after a life long affair. As Quill & Quire wrote, "The future of literary magazines is already here."

Selections from Joyland Magazine

Retro Vol. 1 No. 2

Millions of immigrants risk deportation and imprisonment by living in the US without legal status. They are living underground, with little protection from exploitation at the hands of human smugglers, employers, or law enforcement. Underground America presents the remarkable oral histories of men and women struggling to carve a life for themselves in the US.

Set in Namibia just after independence in the early 1990s, Peter Orner's first novel is a chronicle of the long days, short loves, and cold nights at Goas, an all-boys Catholic primary school so deep in the veld that "even the baboons feel sorry for us." Though physically isolated in semi-desert beneath a relentless sun, the people of Goas create an alternate, more fertile universe through the stories they tell each other. The book's central character is Mavala Shikongo, a combat veteran who fought in Namibia's long war for independence against South Africa. She has recently returned to the school -- with a child, but no husband. Mavala is modern, restless, and driven, in sharp contrast to conservative Goas. All the male teachers (including a bumbling but observant volunteer from Cincinnati) try not to fall in love with her. Everyone fails -- immediately and miserably. This extraordinary first novel explores the history of a place through the stories of its people. But above all it's about the fleetingness of love and the endurance of fellowship.

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo

Alexander Popper can't stop remembering. Four years old when his father tossed him into Lake Michigan, he was told, Sink or swim, kid. In his mind, he's still bobbing in that frigid water. The rest of this novel's vivid cast of characters also struggle to remain afloat: Popper's mother, stymied by an unhappy marriage, seeks solace in the relentless energy of Chicago; his brother, Leo, shadow boss of the family, retreats into books; paternal grandparents, Seymour and Bernice, once high fliers, now mourn for long lost days; his father, a lawyer and would-be politician obsessed with his own success, fails to see that the family is falling apart; and his college girlfriend, the fiercely independent Kat, wrestles with impossible choices. Covering four generations of the Popper family, Peter Orner illuminates the countless ways that love both makes us whole and completely unravels us. A comic and sorrowful tapestry of memory of connection and disconnection, Love and Shame and Love explores the universals with stunning originality and wisdom.

In this powerful and virtuosic collection of interlocking stories, each one "a marvel of concision and compassion" (Washington Post), Peter Orner, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and "master of his form" (New York Times), takes the short story to new heights. Through forty-four compressed gems, Peter Orner, a writer who "doesn't simply bring his characters to life, he gives them souls" (NYT Book Review), chronicles people whose lives are at inflection points, gripping us with a series of defining moments. Whether it's a first date that turns into a late-night road trip to a séance in an abandoned airplane hangar, or a family's memories of the painful mystery surrounding a forgotten uncle's demise, Orner reveals how our fleeting decisions between kindness and abandonment chase us across time. These stories are anchored by a poignant novella that delivers not only the joys and travails of a forty-year marriage, but an entire era in a working-class New England city. Bristling with the crackling energy of life itself, Maggie Brown & Others marks the most sustained achievement to date for "a master of his form" (New York Times). - A New York Times Notable Book- Longlisted for the Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize- An Oprah Magazine Best Book of 2019- Kirkus "Best Short Fiction of 2019"

The discovery of a murdered man in a bathrobe by the side of a road, the destruction of a town's historic City Hall building, and the recollection of a cruel wartime decision are equally affecting in Orner's vivid and intimate gaze. The first half of the book concerns the lives of unrelated strangers across the American landscape, and the second introduces two very different Jewish families, one on the East Coast, the other in the Midwest. Yet Orner's real territory is memory, and this book of wide-ranging and innovative stories remains an important and unique contribution to the art of the American short story.

Esther Stories

Underground America tells the stories of men and women who have come to the United States seeking a better life for their families, only to be subjected to dehumanizing working conditions. Supporting myriad industries, these workers form an essential part of our economy — often by working the least desirable jobs without the most basic legal protections. Underground America allows this largely ignored part of our country to finally share its experiences.

Collects tales exploring the lives of strangers and family members and the memories that haunt them, including the stories "The Raft" and "Melba Kuperschmid Returns".

Evan Lyon

Moving stories of life in a country enduring an ongoing crisis Seven years after the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere struck Haiti, the island nation remains in crisis, all but ignored by the international community. At the center of this crisis is Lavil--"The City" in Kreyol, as Port-au-Prince is known to Haitians--the cultural, political, and economic capital of Haiti and home to over 2.5 million resilient souls. This immersive and engrossing oral history collection gives voice to the continuing struggle of Haitian people to live, love and prosper while trying to rebuild their city and country after disasters both natural and man-made. Among the narrators: Juslene, who moved to Port-au-Prince as a child for educational opportunities but was instead forced to work as a restavek--an unpaid servant--and who maintains unwavering hope despite the loss of her family when the city was destroyed. Johnny and Denis, a teacher and his younger brother, who spent years hustling for work and looking out for each other in one of the city's sprawling post-earthquake tent camps. Lamothe, a wry and well-read expert on Haiti's clean water crisis, who is one of the many Port-au-Prince citizens dedicated to rebuilding his city and nation.

Peter Orner

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