Stephen O'Connor

A historical tale inspired by the decades-long relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings details their first encounters in late-eighteenth-century Paris and the inconsistent values that shaped their affair. Jefferson is both the visionary Founding Father and an egotistical bigot; Hemings struggles to make a radical assertion of her freedom, while fearing her rage may destroy her life.

A Novel

Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

STEPHEN O’CONNOR IS ONE OF TODAY’S MOST GIFTED AND ORIGINAL WRITERS. In Here Comes Another Lesson, O’Connor, whose stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Conjunctions, and many other places, fearlessly depicts a world that no longer quite makes sense. Ranging from the wildly inventive to the vividly realistic, these brilliant stories offer tender portraits of idealists who cannot live according to their own ideals and of lovers baffled by the realities of love. The story lines are unforgettable: A son is followed home from work by his dead father. God instructs a professor of atheism to disseminate updated Commandments. The Minotaur is awakened to his own humanity by the computer-game-playing "new girl" who has been brought to him for supper. A recently returned veteran longs for the utterly ordinary life he led as a husband and father before being sent to Iraq. An ornithologist, forewarned by a cormorant of the exact minute of his death, struggles to remain alert to beauty and joy. As playful as it is lyrical, Here Comes Another Lesson celebrates human hopefulness and laments a sane and gentle world that cannot exist.

Stories

Here Comes Another Lesson

Michael Miller

Kelly Easton

Rachel Zucker

Andrew McKay

John Kinsella

Eric Barnes

Amy Bonnaffons

Josh Billings

Chris Arthur

Angela Rodel

Lexi Freiman

Dan Beachy-Quick

Callista Buchen

Weston Cutter

Renee Ashley

Geoffrey Nutter

Angel Igov

Collier Nogues

Gloria Amodeo

Erica Anzalone

Steve Barbaro

Lucy Bierderman

Brett Lauer

Jane Lewty

W. M. Lobko

Stephen Longfellow

Kate Munning

Sarah Nordgren

Douglas Ramspeck

Benjamin Sutton

Leon Weinmann

Theodore Worozbyt

Invisible Cities

The Literary

Ah, the unfortunate Bartley Hannigan. Teacher burnout is just one of his problems. There’s also his disintegrating marriage, the inheritance of a haunted property with its uninvited bibulous guest, a psycho poet with a fatal attraction, the arrival of an Irish banshee hunter with poor personal hygiene, his sudden passion for a stripper, and eventually, the hit man on his trail. But as the gypsy said, this “shit-storm” will lead to either a higher plane of understanding—or sudden death. Either way, Bartley can hear his train a comin', and he's ready to jump aboard and ride the winding rails to the last stop, because he's done with the bullshit! Done!

Teacher Burnout and the Irish Powers

This Is No Time to Quit Drinking

The true story behind Christina Baker Kline’s bestselling novel is revealed in this “engaging and thoughtful history” of the Children’s Aid Society (Los Angeles Times). A powerful blend of history, biography, and adventure, Orphan Trains fills a grievous gap in the American story. Tracing the evolution of the Children’s Aid Society, this dramatic narrative tells the fascinating tale of one of the most famous—and sometimes infamous—child welfare programs: the orphan trains, which spirited away some two hundred fifty thousand abandoned children into the homes of rural families in the Midwest. In mid-nineteenth-century New York, vagrant children, whether orphans or runaways, filled the streets. The city’s solution for years had been to sweep these children into prisons or almshouses. But a young minister named Charles Loring Brace took a different tack. With the creation of the Children’s Aid Society in 1853, he provided homeless youngsters with shelter, education, and, for many, a new family out west. The family matching process was haphazard, to say the least: at town meetings, farming families took their pick of the orphan train riders. Some children, such as James Brady, who became governor of Alaska, found loving homes, while others, such as Charley Miller, who shot two boys on a train in Wyoming, saw no end to their misery. Complete with extraordinary photographs and deeply moving stories, Orphan Trains gives invaluable insights into a creative genius whose pioneering, if controversial, efforts inform child rescue work today.

The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed

Orphan Trains

Describes efforts to educate urban youngsters through writing

Will My Name Be Shouted Out

In mid-nineteenth-century New York, vagrant youth, both orphans and runaways, filled the streets. For years the city had been sweeping these children into prisons or almshouses, but in 1853 the young minister Charles Loring Brace proposed a radical solution to the problem by creating the Children's Aid Society, an organization that fought to provide homeless children with shelter, education, and, for many, a new family in the country. Combining a biography of Brace with firsthand accounts of orphans, Stephen O'Connor here tells of the orphan trains that, between 1854 and 1929, spirited away some 250,000 destitute children to rural homes in every one of the forty-eight contiguous states. A powerful blend of history, biography, and adventure, Orphans Trains remains the definitive work on this little-known episode in American history.

Stephen O'Connor

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