Peter OrnerCritiques

I am smitten with this book of funny, astute essays on reading. It is smart, personal, candid and it's indexed. With notes. How could anyone run out of good reading, said I with already 700+ on my To-Read Shelf?

Peter Orner llegeix sempre i a tot arreu: al restaurant d'un hospital, al soterrani de casa, quan acompanya la seva filla al parc, en un autobús a Haití, durant les crisis sentimentals, quan està tramitant el seu divorci, durant la malaltia i la mort del seu pare. La lectura l'acompanya, l'ajuda a veure-hi clar i a entendre millor el món, l'il·lumina, li fa de refugi i l'ajuda a tirar endavant. I un dia decideix escriure sobre el paper de la narrativa en la seva vida, com ha quedat impresa en la seva història personal. El resultat és un llibre commovedor, lúcid i honest que convoca escriptors com Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, James Salter, J.D. Salinger o Juan Rulfo i explora el plaer de la lectura, la solitud i l'ofici d'escriure, i el paper essencial que té la literatura en les nostres vides.

In this skillful and varied collection, Peter Orner once again shows us how it's done. "It" in this case being short fiction or brief, exquisite vignettes taken from his own experience. There are short stories here that are rooted firmly in their settings: some in the sleepy, hippie-inflected hills of Northern California, others in Fall River, Massachusetts's Jewish community. There are what I can only assume are semi-autobiographical stories describing how a new marriage breaks down as one of the parties slowly succumbs to mental illness. There's a lovely, perhaps necessarily incomplete homage to Len, a wildly inventive, endlessly energetic summer camp director who is slowly losing his life to a terminal illness he's forced to keep secret from his past associates. There are stories about Peter Orner's lawyer dad that are mostly about how different they were and how much he misses his dad anyway. There are a few stories you might have heard in a dorm room late at night as a college junior. And, as in any short story collection of any length, there are some strays. I can particularly recommend the title story, "Padanaram", "Naked Man Hides", and the aforementioned "Ineffectual Tribute to Len" which may be the real heartbreaker here. But Orner's batting average is so much higher than the average Tin House submission rat's that opinions are bound to vary and most things here work on at least one level.

What holds all of this together is an attention to craft and a deeply held appreciation for the short story form. Orner argues that while novels might tell us more about a character and their lives, their very size closes off their narrative: they purport to tell the definitive story of a person or an event. A short story, on the other hand, is, thanks to its very length and structure, half-built, incomplete, and, therefore, always a bit unfinished. It's eternally open and makes no claims to setting down a definitive account of anything or anyone. It's something to consider, and the stories in this volume make the author's case fairly well. So well that Orner himself seems to have come up in the world considerably since the relative success of "Am I Alone Here?" He's now teaching at Dartmouth and, while I'm not sure of the timeframe here, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright to, of all places, Namibia. Quite frankly, few writers working today deserve it more than he does. Sentence by sentence and story by story, Peter Orner shows that he's the real thing.

REALLY enjoyed this. Saw a blurb for it and had almost forgotten I read his short story collection [Last Car Over Sagamore Bridge] a few years ago. This essay collection contains remembrances with people or places from Orner's past and some related to book passages or authors. These things are tied together with present day thoughts or ideas. The writing is very well done and his use of language is exceptional. RECOMMENDED

I met Peter Orner through "Am I Alone Here?", his beguiling mix of autobiography and literary musings. If that book made anything clear, it was that the author takes the short story form very seriously. "Esther Stories" bears that out. As one might expect, not every story here hits its mark, but at its best, the stories here more or less provide supporting evidence the author's claim that the short story provides authors more freedom to tell a story -- any kind of story -- than any other literary medium. The best stories here -- "County Road G", "The Two Poes", "At the Rainbow Motel", "Pile of Clothes", and the cycle of stories that focus on Esther Burman, the collection's namesake -- are small masterpieces, arguments in favor of the short story itself. It helps, I think, that many characters in these stories are committed storytellers themselves. "Esther Stories" overflows with rumors, family legends, fish stories, and second-hand accounts. In "Am I Alone Here?" Orner came off as a compulsive reader fairly obsessed by literature. In these stories, he seems to want to show that we are all, in our own way, obsessed by narratives of some sort.

Having said that, I liked the stories about the Burman family of Chicago much more than the ones about the Kaplan family of Fall River, Massachusetts. That can probably be chalked up to nothing more than personal preference, but that also counts for something. Some of this collection's other stories, while well-crafted, didn't really hit me the way the author might have intended them to. Others seemed, well, too short to really grab my attention. But novels have their strong and weak points as well: nobody makes every shot they take. I expect that I'll revisit some of these stories more than once and am happy to say I've got a one or two of Orner's other short story collections on my Kindle. Recommended.½

Stunning writing. Probably one of the best story collections I’ve read in a long time.

His writing is amazing; he says so much with so few words. The characters are so well developed, and this is so much pain in this book. Orner is also excellent at portraying mundane occurrences in very interesting ways.½

An important read, sharing first-person accounts about living undocumented in the U.S., but I was so stressed out by the hardships, injustice, and worries these individuals have experienced. This book gave me nightmares. The intro by editor Orner and foreward by Urrea emphasize giving a voice to people who are constantly talked about but who are rarely asked for their opinions.

Rating: 4.5* of five

All the stars, all the stripes, all the band fanfares for Walt Kaplan is Broke: A Novella! The Chicago stuff, Lighted Windows, not so much; the thematic unity there was love, looking for love, running into it without meaning to, and that's pretty much why short stories get a bad rap from most folks because, in the end, who friggin cares.

Renters: A Sequence was affecting as a group of minor stories, cohesive in their central theme of exploring the disaster and misery of a marriage foundering under the skyscraper-tall waves of mental illness; the issue for me, the reason it wasn't as rock-me-back beautiful as Walt Kaplan was, was that the characters were sketched in thin, spidery lines instead of bold, dark strokes.

The Cali stuff, Come Back to California, was okay, I guess, but not excellent the way the Fall River, Mass, Jews in Castaways were. Startlingly rich and layered characterizations in quite compact stories, so compact as to be fleeting in some cases. The best single story in the book is in this section: "Bernard: A Character Study" was a peak read for me, a simple and direct evocation of a simple and direct person's time on this Earth.

The micro-ness of the fictions works best in the novella. They are a perfect meal made of tapas, orchestrated to present a dozen views of the tale; they each have a flavor impact outsized to their physical page presence, but contribute their unique qualities to a whole and satisfying conclusion to one's story hunger:

And think of the '60s, when the whole country got a little wilder and we joined in and did it twice a night? You remember, Sar? Now twice a night would be like rising from the dead, but history is history, and if not set down on paper it should at least be ruminated upon. Sarah and Walt Kaplan, one night, more than once, two entirely separate fornications.

Now, for a philosophical as well as a practical question: Why didn't we just push the beds together and leave them there? Ah, because that would be a lie, no? The nature of the reaching, the nature of the whispered entreaties, a thousand variations on the same invitation, is that both reaching of the hands and the question in question invariably lead to moments of complete incompleteness. Because the upshot of coupling is uncoupling. The essence of association is disassociation. Because you can fuck till you're blue, but at a certain point the inevitable nightly drawing apart happens for good, am I right or am I right? Spell it out again: the retreat once again to separate beds attains a cementation that precludes any further you wannas. After a certain point you wanna? is no longer an invitation for rumpus; it's a cry from oblivion.

It's to your taste, or it isn't; but it *is* beautiful.½

What kind of word magician writes a novella in short stories that leaves me in tears when a character dies? These snippets pieced together a life, a community. And I hated to leave.

I had heard a lot of buzz about Peter Orner's Maggie Brown & Others. And it was on my pre-approved NetGalley shelf. I squeezed it into my reading schedule.

The early short stories captivated me. Twice I quoted the book for David Abrams' Sunday Sentence on Twitter, where people post 'the best sentence' they read that week:

An old boyfriend once told her that she had a way of using magnanimity as a weapon.

Shouts in the dark. Maybe that's the best we can do to reach beyond ourselves.

I noted lovely sentences such as, "Her shoulder blades are still shaped like the prows of rowboats." And pointed insights like "There's something so ruthless about optimism."

The diverse stories are insightful and I loved meeting all of these people, learning so much about them through these small slivers of life.

In the fourth section of the book, Walt Kaplan is Broke: A Novella, we meet a good man with a small life, a broke man rich in love. The stories jump through time, building the story of Fall River in New Jersey and the remnant community of Jews--those who have died and "the ones waiting for the opportunity."

You have to love people like Walt and Sarah Kaplan who ask "you wanna" and then push their twin beds together, never having considered purchasing a queen bed.

I could return to these stories again and again.

In one story a writer is told there is no money in writing short stories! I would guess that is true, but I am sure glad writers like Orner still employ the form.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A curious, charming literary hybrid that combines autobiography, musings on the author's favorite writers, and meditations on the nature of storytelling. As if to underline its eccentricity, it includes hand-painted versions of the books that the author discusses. The author comes off throughout the book as a man obsessed, a compulsive reader who reads as soon as he wakes up, just before he goes to sleep, and most other times between. I'm a fairly consistent reader, but Orner is in another category altogether. The sort of people who's lives are wholly consumed by books may find a kindred spirit in the author.

As literary analysis, "Am I Alone Here," although it cites specific passages from specific works, favors big-picture analysis, which, in my opinion, makes it a better read. Orner wants to know what makes a story work, why we tell and write stories, how stories connect with our lives. His take on the story is holistic and not mechanical: he's open to surprise and innovation and is happy to leave some questions unresolved. This is a meditation on storytelling, not a writing guide, and it's probably better for it. As an autobiographer, Orner seems very much at peace with the fact that he's lived a somewhat unconventional, disjointed life that has been wholly consumed by books and writing. He discusses his large, colorful family, his troubled relationship with his late father, a marriage that didn't work out, time spent in late-nineties Prague, and his life as a husband and father. While Orner can be remarkably insightful about life and literature, to his credit, this isn't one of those memoirs that tries to convince the reader that the author has resolved his problems, learned some lessons, and moved on. While it's ending is frustratingly inconclusive, the book makes it clear that the author is still in the process of mourning his father, becoming a better writer, and finding his place in the world. Indeed, books seem to be one of the only constants in it, something that many fellow bibliophiles may appreciate.

As other reviewers have mentioned, many of the author discusses here are rather obscure, and while that makes "Am I Alone Here" a less immediately engaging read than it otherwise might have been, I also picked up a Kindle edition of Brohumil Hrabal's "Too Loud a Sloitude" for two dollars because it was mentioned here. He describes how, after he finished it in a Prague park, he felt so happy that he waved it around like a madman and believed that he'd had a genuinely religious experience. It's a story that's rather representative of "Am I Alone Here" as a whole and also one heck of a recommendation. Hardly the most linear book I've ever read, but "Am I Alone Here" is recommended to writers and hopeless bibliophiles alike.½

This wins the most unconventional memoir award, as it's described as "a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir.” (Say what?)

Mr. Orner, a professor, poses questions on literature and life and the reader is invited into this, at times, existential exploration. At first blush the book appears pedantic, but have courage readers, Am I Alone Here? is affecting on so many levels.

The author's true love is the short story, mixed with poetry and the occasional novel. Each chapter shows a rendering of the book cover, reviews the story (or poetry), gives background on the author (many of which were unknown to me) and then, how the story relates to Mr. Orner's own life.

Mr. Orner is a thinker -- a ponderer and as with many artists he struggles with the meaning of his life as it relates to his gift...and gifted he is. There's some staggeringly beautiful writing on display here.

On reading a book of poetry by an obscure poet:

"Books pursue us. I've always believed this. I dug Herbert Morris out of the free bin outside Dog Eared Books (San Francisco). What compelled me to stop that day? How can I express my gratitude to a poet who never sought it, who only wanted me to know his creations, not their creator? An how many others might be out there, somewhere, under all this noise, tell us things we need to hear?"

I must admit I skipped around while reading Am I Alone Here? and found some bits more interesting than others. The format is unusual which allows for picking and choosing chapters to suit. And the chapter titles -- so intriguing:

Euroda Welty, Badass; Shameless Impostors; Surviving the Lives We Have; My Father's Gloves; Night Train to Split: Unforgiveable

Don't you just want to see what they'll offer? My Father's Gloves is a tender tribute to his father and, unless you're a hard case, will bring tears to your eyes.

Sometimes heavy, often cynical, but always probing, and insightful-- Am I Alone Here offers plenty to think about long after you've finished. An as an added bonus, if you're like me, you'll come away with a whole new list of authors and poets to explore.
See more at http://www.bookbarmy.com

I am not a lover of the short story, as this author is, but he did persuade me to look at certain stories in a different way, to value the way a short story can give a glimpse of a moment in time, a snapshot of a life or an incident. In this book of essays, Peter Orner features a different author and one of their writings, in each chapter. Most of the chapters describe a short story, and it’s impact on his life, although a few do mention novels. Throughout the book, the author tells much about his own life, and some chapters are much more autobiographical than others. I always enjoy hearing how reading has impacted a person’s life, and this was an enjoyable read.

I apologize for my late review, as I read this book months ago. I had high expectations because books about books is a favorite topic of mine. Peter Orner writes well, but I was unable to relate or identify with him and I found myself skimming through most of the chapters. Additionally, the books he highlighted were so obscure to me, I was not compelled to explore the works mentioned. This is a book worth picking up, if you appreciate musingings and thoughtful introspection.

Presents stories as a means of explaining things to oneself. Thought provoking, but hard to relate to some of the more obscure references.

I consider that I have read a lot of different authors but over half of the writers Peter Orner mentions in this memoir about living to read and reading to live are completely new to me. Even the ones of which I have heard are not exactly household names. And the ones that I have actually read I could count on the fingers of one hand.

Orner tends to extol writers of short stories whereas I prefer to read full length fiction. I do admit that when a short story writer is a master of the craft there is something magical that is achieved. One of the writers that Orner admires is Mavis Gallant who was a Canadian albeit having lived most of her adult years in France. He was reading an essay by her just before he learned of her death but he says that isn't a coincidence because he quite often starts out his day by reading something by her. "She sets the bar so high I can relax in the knowledge that, whatever I say, I'll never be able to say it as lucidly as she does." Having read Gallant's short stories I can agree with his assessment which makes me think that I should give some of the other writers he mentions like Vaclav Havel, Eudora Welty and Andre Dubus a try.

One of the great things about reading is how a book will lead you to reading another book and then another and so on. Thank you Peter Orner for opening my eyes to new authors and their works.

Thanks to Librarything and Catapult for a free copy of this book. Am I Alone Here? Is subtitled Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live. That pretty much sums up the book. Peter Orner has written a series of short essays, some just about his life and others about authors and stories that he has read. I was hooked right from the beginning. Orner muses in the introduction that "I'll be dead before I read even a quarter of the books down here. That leaves at least three-quarters of these books unread. But to measure a life in unread books seems about right to me. All the experiences we will never have, places we will never go, people we will never meet." As I was reading the introduction, I knew I had a found a kindred spirit. I may have finished this book but I have not finished with this book. I particularly enjoyed the essays about authors and their writing whether I was familiar with these authors or not. Horner has inspired me to regularly read an essay and then read the works discussed. This will be a treasured book in my collection and I would recommend it to any and all literary fiction buffs.

Part memoirs, part essay collection, and part reader's advisory; Am I Alone Here? didn't excite me when I picked it up but I found I couldn't put it back down. Admittedly, I have never read any of Orner's fiction but now I want to. Over 41 or so essays Orner explores writing and reading; his father's death and his daughter's birth using novels and stories as his meditative center. Each chapter/essay centers along a certain author or story, drawing themes to correlate with marriages, deaths, births, and loneliness. This category-defying memoir? essay collection? literary criticism? was a pleasure to read. Not only did I come away from this book with am appreciation for Orner's writing, but a long list of books to read.

I have mixed feelings about this book and, while reading, was alternately captivated and irritated. I’m always interested in reading lives, why we read, how books affect us, which books others find especially noteworthy. I like reading about, and thinking about, the ways that our lives and our reading are linked, how they inform each other. And I really loved parts of Orner’s account, especially the earlier chapters. But as the book progressed, I became kind of bored. I’m not sure why. Partly, no doubt, due to unfamiliarity with the book or story under discussion. And partly because a central project of writing the book seemed to be Orner’s argument with himself, his effort to make peace with his father’s memory.

The book consists of about 40 short chapters, some (many?) of which began as entries in a column that Orner wrote for The Rumpus. Each short essay is partly a tribute to the book, story, or author under discussion and partly a discussion of how Orner came to the story and how it intersected with his own life. We get a lot of memoir here and come to understand that the book, overall, is largely about Orner’s complicated relationship with his father — and, to a lesser extent, his relationship with his (first?) wife and her problems. (It made me uncomfortable that he tells so much about her problems when she’d clearly asked him not to write about her. More than uncomfortable. It irritated me bigtime.)

I admit that my boredom was frequently interrupted by some highlight=-worthy passages. For example:

"All lives are interesting; no one life is more interesting than another. It all depends on how much is revealed and in what manner."

"She swore she wouldn’t come back, but she did. Endless the roads that bring us back home, endless the roads that carry us away again."

"Salter’s obituary in The New York Times focused, at length, on how unfamous he was. As if fame is the sole basis by which we judge a lifetime of work. When will we cut this shit out? And enough with the writer’s writer stuff. He wrote for readers, if not for millions, then for enough of them."

"Outside, the fog was so thick it wasn’t fog exactly, more like a curtain of rain that wasn’t falling."

In fact, I highlighted a lot throughout the book — and for many different reasons. And I have another list of things I want to read, and reread. I’ll no doubt dip into this book again. There’s really a lot I’d like to revisit and think about.

Orner offers a free companion book that contains the full text of some of the works mentioned in Am I Alone Here (stories from Chekhov, Gallant, Pancake, Babel, et al.). The download link didn’t work for me with the Safari browser, but did work with Firefox.

In Am I Alone Here, Peter Orner weaves together essays about reading, scenes from his life, and angst-ridden thoughts about his father, all in forty-odd chapters. I enjoyed skipping about from section to section, skimming for authors, books, and topics of interest.

Each chapter is headed by a drawing by Eric Orner, Peter's brother, of the cover of a book discussed in the text, drawings of the editions owned by the author. This ploy deepened and enlarged my interest in each chapter.

There are some books where the title is completely confusing and, at first glance, out of place...Steinbeck's OF MICE AND MEN comes to mind. This is not one of those books. What you see is what you get with Peter Orner's AM I ALONE HERE: NOTES ON LIVING TO READ AND READING TO LIVE.

The book gives readers glimpses into the author's life, and what books/authors have influenced him. It's a borrowed book that was never returned, and the author is ruminating about his relationship with the borrow-ee. It's a scene in the book that the author is currently reading, that brings up memories of a similar scene in Peter's life. It's two books that, at first glance might not seem similar, but upon reflection the author sees many parallels. By the end of the book, you may feel like you know something about Peter Orner...for better or worse. However, as is the case with most collections of essays, you may resonate with some of the pieces more than others.

For me, one of the most interesting pieces was "Eudora Welty, Badass". In it, Peter Orner talks about his love for Eudora Welty, and how he even made a pilgrimmage to her home (now a historic landmark) and inspecting her books. He also discovers a little-known story in her obscure, short story collection THE BRIDE OF THE INNISFALLEN called "The Burning". She primarily wrote about the American South, living her entire life in that area. In this particular story, she did not shy away from confronting the overt racism and other evils of slaveholders toward their slaves. In particular, the practice of white masters raping their female slaves is highlighted - within the context of post-Civil War reconstruction. Welty takes on complicated and complex issues that face herself and her fellow Southerners with clarity and sharpness. For Orner, that definitely makes her a badass, and puts this story in the realm of Toni Morrison, Edward P. Jones, and William Faulkner.

Most of the pieces feature at least one book that played a significant role in Peter Orner's life, but there are two essays which are obituaries he wrote after his father's death. His father features in many of the essays in AM I ALONE HERE as being a source of love, of fear, of confusion, and of example. One of the most unexpectedly moving essays is "My Father's Gloves", showing how an ordinary object to one person can be a metaphor and important artifact to another.

There are over 40 short essays here, each one around 5 pages long, which makes it perfect to read while waiting for an appointment, during a lunch break, or sitting on the toilet. In fact, the writing style is so unpretentious and full of humor, yet well-crafted and thoughtful that you don't even realize you're learning something, or feeling feelings, until the essay is over. This is the brilliance of Peter Orner's writing - it creeps up slowly and without flourish, then hits you over the head.

AM I ALONE HERE is a book that can be approached from many different ways, for different people. It's for readers and bibliophiles. It's for lovers of imperfect and complicated people and relationships. It's for memoir/essay enthusiasts. It's for humans.

There exists no greater delight to a reader than a book on the joy, and necessity, of books and reading. The author here, writes about the books that have sustained him through difficult times in his life, such as the death of his father. First of all, this book is nicely put together with a beautiful cover, sturdy flaps and nice illustrations of each book discussed. Divided into chapters discussing a particular book, mostly short story collections, there is a diverse array to read about, many that I had never read. Wonderfully written and full of great observations on the power of a good story, I recommend this to all passionate readers. I received this book from the LibraryThing giveaway in exchange for an honest review.½

I loved this book though it will be hard for me to articulate just exactly why......I will, however, try. The book is very unconventional. Mr. Orner has a love of the short story and though there are a few novels mentioned within this memoir, there are far more short stories. The book is kind of a mix of, review of story, information about the author of the story and Peter Orner's life likened to the story. Not sure if that makes sense but it does make for some awesome reading. Mr. Orner has a dark side to his writing....he is a thinker, he ponders and as with many artists he struggles with the meaning of his life in relation to his gift....which is, most assuredly, on display in this book.
One may ask why we want to know about Mr. Orner's struggles but this book is about far more than that.....a reader, a writer. any lover of the written word will find nuggets of profundity in these pages. The book opened my eyes to all kinds of new reading opportunities...it also gave me clues as to how to look at past readings. The format is unusual which allows for contemplation. This book will poke and prod around in my head for a long time. The reading of "Am I Alone Here ?" will, most likely affect everything I read in the future.
I applaud Peter Orner for his willingness to share so much raw emotion....to relate it to the stories we read or write, and for his ability to do so in a way that is so engaging. I am so glad I had the opportunity to read this. Not sure if I would have picked it off the shelf . Having read and reviewed it, I find that I have so many people I would like to recommend it to.

I wish I could give this just one more half star.

For me, this was a great Chicago novel, though not a great novel. I never felt like the little chapters added up to anything substantial enough and it began to feel rushed by the end.

But golly, it was fun to read about the city.

A wonderful engaging book - very different from the usual white teacher comes to Africa with much wisdom to impart. Young Jewish Larry Kaplansky lands at a run down mission school in the middle of the Nambibian nowhere. His colleagues are an engaging bunch, there's a drought, a neighboring farmer sells vegetables, a piano arrives. There is boredom, joy, sorrow, mystery, and more boredom. The story - or what there is of it - is told in brief, sometimes single paragraph chapters, but it builds like the most detailed novel and the brievity adds to the humor and sadness. A most unusual but very satisfying story.