Books

Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge

By Peter Orner (Electronic Book, 2013)
The long-awaited second collection of stories from a writer whose first was hailed as "one of the best story collections of the last decade" (Kevin Brockmeier).
In Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, 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's become known, Orner presents a kaleidoscope of individual lives viewed in startling, intimate close-up. Whether writing of Geraldo Rivera's attempt to reveal the contents of Al Capone's vault or of a father and daughter trying to outrun a hurricane, he illuminates universal themes. In stories that span considerable geographic ground-from Chicago to Wyoming, from Massachusetts to the Czech Republic-he writes of the past we can't seem to shake, the losses we can't make up for, and how our stories help us reclaim what we thought was gone forever.
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  • Little, Brown and Company

    • Format: Electronic Book

    • Price: $12.99 US/$12.99 CAN

    • ISBN-13: 9780316224635

    • On Sale Date: 08/06/2013

    • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

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    Formats Available: Hardcover Book, Electronic Book

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The long-awaited second collection of stories from a writer whose first was hailed as "one of the best story collections of the last decade" (Kevin Brockmeier).
In Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, 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's become known, Orner presents a kaleidoscope of individual lives viewed in startling, intimate close-up. Whether writing of Geraldo Rivera's attempt to reveal the contents of Al Capone's vault or of a father and daughter trying to outrun a hurricane, he illuminates universal themes. In stories that span considerable geographic ground-from Chicago to Wyoming, from Massachusetts to the Czech Republic-he writes of the past we can't seem to shake, the losses we can't make up for, and how our stories help us reclaim what we thought was gone forever.

Peter Orner is the author of three acclaimed books, Esther Stories, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, and Love and Shame and Love. Some of the stories in Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge first appeared in Conjunctions, McSweeney's, Granta, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Bomb, A Public Space, and The Pushcart Prize XXXII. Born in Chicago, Orner now lives in San Francisco.

  • Praise for Love and Shame and Love:

    "A book that gets in your head and makes itself at home there. . . .Like the James Salter of Light Years and A Sport and a Pastime, with their acutely observed domestic and sexual tension." (New York Times Book Review).

  • "Beautiful. . . .Think Saul Bellow (Chicago setting, rollicking Jewish-style comedy) mated with Chekhov (unassuming, devastating detail), set to the twangy thump of early Tom Petty.  Now that promises quite a love child." (Boston Globe).

  • Praise for ESTHER STORIES (2001)

    "A luminous debut collection. . . .Like Amy  Bloom and Charles Baxter, Orner has a gift for revealing how the tragic and the mundane occupy equal berths in our limited mental space." (John Freeman, Chicago Tribune).

  • "Some of Orner's very short stories are the best of that form that I have read since Isaac Babel's." (Andre Dubus).

  • "If the short story were in need of a future, it has been found in Peter Orner." (Dennis Lehane).

  • "These are stories of unusual delicacy and beauty, and this is a remarkable collection." (Charles Baxter).

  • "The spirit of Esther Stories is, like true beauty, no aesthete, and like true love, no setimentalist." (Marilynne Robinson).

  • "Orner doesn't simply bring his characters to life, he gives them souls."  (Margot Livesey, New York Times Book Review).

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Product Details

Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge
  • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
  • Price: $12.99 US/$12.99 CAN
  • Pages: 208
  • ISBN-13: 9780316224635
  • On Sale Date: 08/06/2013
Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge
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Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge
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