Convinced that the key to the unraveling of his own life is tied to the tragic death of a young Hollywood starlet, an unheralded writer embarks on a quest to solve the cold case—a new novel by “a major talent” (New York Times) and “one of the most distinctive voices of his generation” (Granta).Jed Rosenthal hasn’t published a book in fourteen years, the mother of his child left him in a “trial separation” that has stretched on indefinitely, and he...

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...

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 Shik...

Peter Orner lee en el sótano de su edificio, lee mientras cuida a su hija en una plaza, lee en hospitales y en una selva tomada por la revuelta sandinista, lee durante su divorcio, lee a través de la distancia y la pérdida, lee para sentirse acompañado durante la enfermedad y la muerte de su padre.En un diálogo que va desde J. D. Salinger y Virginia Woolf hasta Isaac Babel, Juan Rulfo y Eudora Welty, Orner escribe sobre los autores que lo ayudan a recorrer su duelo y a enten...

In this powerful and virtuosic collection of interlocking stories, each one "a marvel of concision and compassion" (Washington Post), 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 a...

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 ...

**Finalist for the Vermont Book AwardFinalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayA new collection of pieces on literature and life by the author of Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the NBCC Award for Criticism**Stationed in the South Pacific during World War II, Seymour Orner wrote a letter every day to his wife, Lorraine. She seldom responded, leading him to plead in 1945, “Another day and still no word from you.” Seventy years...

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 boo...

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 co...

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 a...

The cold case of a young Hollywood starlet’s death sets a contemporary writer on an epic and comic quest to uncover the truth, and its connection to his own family**—a new novel by “a major talent” (New York Times) and “one of the most distinctive voices of his generation” (Granta).**Jed Rosenthal hasn’t published a book in fourteen years, the mother of his child left him in a “trial separation” that has stretched on indefinitely, and he struggles...

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 flie...