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.
Maggie Brown & Others: Stories
by Peter Orner
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 02 Jul 2019
ISBN 9780316516112
PRICE $27.00 (USD)
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