Esther Stories (Paperback)

~ (Author) "THE GIRL was young when she did it, and she didn't live there..." (more)
Key Phrases: Growling Poe, Fall River, Smiling Poe (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Innovative, original and fresh as a breath of perfumed summer air, these 34 stories capture pure emotion so vividly they tremble with contained life. Orner, who was published in The Best American Short Stories 2001 and has received a Pushcart Prize, creates characters so real that readers sense they could not only recognize them on the street, but also see into their troubled hearts. The tales collected here cover a lot of geographical ground - one group is set in Fall River, Mass., others in Chicago, while some veer away as far as Nova Scotia and Mississippi - but Orner teaches us that people everywhere share the same sorrows and joys. "Cousin Tuck's" is a heartbreaking tale of two misfits, Tito and Nadine, who find each other again. "[S]ome nights he'd take her home. Most guys gave him no grief - hell, a warm body's a warm body. In Boston in February, there's guys who sleep with frozen squirrel corpses." In "Atlantic City," a nurse comes home at lunch to find her husband dead and can remember him only on the beach in Atlantic City years before, in an almost unbearably bittersweet reverie. In the even shorter "Shoe Story," which is reminiscent of the late Richard Brautigan, a man recalls a overheard long ago, which ended with a woman throwing a pair of shoes out of the window into the street just by his restaurant table. "[T]hose shoes were angels dispatched to rescue ourselves from our own grease-soaked and burbling-over hearts." This extraordinarily fine collection should establish Orner as a new star of American short fiction. Author tour. (Nov. 2).
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This affecting debut collection presents 34 stories, many no more than a page or two long, that span America. Though the physical territory covered is broad, the emotional probing of the characters is the high point here. The book is divided into four parts: the first two concern the lives of unrelated strangers; the last two present two assimilated Jewish families, one on the East Coast, the other in the Midwest. In the title story, the narrator tries to form a picture of his dead Aunt Esther with fragments of anecdotes: "I study an old high school picture of Esther and find it difficult to believe that the portly, angry, hollow-eyed woman who lived in my grandparents' basement throughout the 1980s is this person who looks so much like Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: seductive, sweaty, a little nasty, a little pouty." Recommended for most libraries. Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (November 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618128735
• ISBN-13: 978-0618128730
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #372,286 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute gem!, October 16, 2001

By A Customer

After reading a story by Orner in the 2001 anthology of the Best American Short Stories, I instantly fell in love with his unique voice and sought out this collection, his first, I believe. I am a big fan of short fiction, and I have to say that Orner's work blew me away. The breadth and depth he brings to these gems is simply amazing. It's refreshing to see a young writer who doesn't resort to shock or gimmicks to keep the readers interest, but rather relies on character, wit, and language to keep us enthralled.

Orner has a profound sense of place. The characters in these stories often seem to be prisoners of not only their own desires, but of geography.

I am recommending this book to everyone I know and my book club next month is scheduled to read it (I will gladly re-read it!). If you're like me and you like to take credit for recognizing major new talents, you need to buy and read this book. Quite simply, it is excellent.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars at last!, November 2, 2001

By A Customer

I have been reading Peter Orner's work in literary journals for years and am so happy to finally have it all collected in one volume. His stories are so quietly beautiful and devastating. The characters are alive, the prose is dead-on, the love of language apparent in every sentence. Orner's stories portray a very real world, flawed and heartbreaking, but joyous nonethless. These stories make me feel like people really are good underneath it all. I think Peter Orner is maybe my favorite contemporary short story writer. It might be a tough call between him and Stuart Dybek, but that comparison alone is the highest praise.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome reality into familiy life! (Reader from Winnetka), April 20, 2002

By	Denise Ashurst (Winnetka, Illinois) - See all my reviews

I was thrilled to find Peters book on our local library shelf. As a reader from Winnetka, Illinois, I felt moved and touched by Peters ability to capture the true essence of living here on the NORTH SHORE in the heart of the Mid West! I enjoyed every short story and found it difficult to put the book down without thinking about how one young mind could have experienced or imagined so much emotion in his life time! Although many stories are emotional, he never leaves us feeling sad!

Peter what a wonder collection of stories, we are all proud of you! It has been my honor reading your incredible stories.