Am i alone here by peter orner6/21/2023 ![]() In one, he recalls how the pain of being separated from his daughter for five weeks was amplified by one of John Edgar Wideman’s tales about missing children. ![]() There is more of the same in later pieces. Orner’s steppingstone structure is as compelling as his personable approach, and we eagerly follow his stray observations and analytical lines of inquiry. Surrounded by illness, he starts to ruminate on dying, which in turn leads to more joined-up thoughts on Chekhov and his treatment of death in his stories - “tiny, but monumental” dramas. He describes sitting in a hospital cafeteria and overhearing gossiping doctors. ![]() Orner’s first essay paves the way for what lies ahead. We can go with this self-deprecatory summation and weigh it against the book’s zippy subtitle “Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live.” More useful, though, and far more rewarding, is to forget labels, delve inside, and allow each piece with its fusion of touching reminiscences, incisive close-readings and candid revelations to speak for itself. ![]() “Think of this as a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir,” writes Orner in his introduction in an attempt at clear-cut categorization. “Am I Alone Here?” comprises 41 essays which blend personal recollection with literary appreciation. With two novels and two collections of short stories under his belt, Peter Orner delivers a fifth book that manages to topple expectations and resist classification. ![]()
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