{"id":188192,"date":"2025-08-31T00:07:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T00:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188192\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T00:07:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T00:07:17","slug":"peter-orner-would-like-to-die-in-a-bookstore-two-actually-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188192\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Orner would like to die in a bookstore. Two, actually. \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Orner, author of seven previous books and chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College, has just published \u201cThe Gossip Columnist\u2019s Daughter.\u201d Orner will be appearing at Chevalier\u2019s Books in Los Angeles at 7 p.m. on Sept. 3<\/a> in conversation with Edan Lepucki.<\/p>\n

Q. Please tell readers about your new book.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Gossip Columnist\u2019s Daughter\u201d is about a friendship between two couples. After many decades, the friendship ends abruptly and irrevocably. Why?<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO<\/strong>:\u00a0Like books? Get our free Book Pages newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more<\/a><\/p>\n

Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?<\/b><\/p>\n

I often recommend Gina Berriault\u2019s collection of stories, \u201cWomen in Their Beds.\u201d I have it right here on my desk. All I\u2019ve got to do is open it and I fall immediately back into Berriault\u2019s seemingly peaceful universe. But there is always a great churning beneath the surface. It opens with a story set in a hospital, some jokesters have hijacked the PA system and are calling out for Dr. Zhivago, Dr. Jekyll \u2026 I mean, how could you not go on reading? So Berriault isn\u2019t as well-known as she should be? Who gives a damn? When it comes to short story writers, she\u2019s immortal. Most definitely, California\u2019s greatest story writer\u2026<\/p>\n

Q. What are you reading now?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yiyun Li\u2019s \u201cThings in Nature Merely Grow.\u201d Anything I might say about it would be superfluous and even stupid. Even so, I\u2019ll say I haven\u2019t been able to do anything the past three days but read this book, more and\u00a0more slowly each hour. And what I know is this: I\u2019ll have the book close, always, within arm\u2019s reach, for the duration. Joy and grief, there\u2019s no separating the two, period. Not if you are paying Li\u2019s level of attention.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve said too much. I should just say, read it. Don\u2019t be afraid of it, read it.<\/p>\n

Q. How do you decide what to read next?<\/b><\/p>\n

Utterly randomly. A spine catches my eye on the free bookshelf outside the co-op grocery store in White River Junction, Vermont, and that\u2019s the book for the next few days.<\/p>\n

Q. Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cricket in Times Square.\u201d How the cricket, forget his name, gets trapped in a picnic basket and brought to New York City. He\u2019s got to figure out how to survive in a subway station\u2026Beautiful cricket out of water story that\u2019s remained in my mind for Jesus, like, 50 years.<\/p>\n

Q. Is there a book or type of book you\u2019re reluctant to read?<\/b><\/p>\n

Though I\u2019ve sort of written two (though I really tried to make them not about me, I didn\u2019t succeed), I avoid memoirs.<\/p>\n

Q. Can you recall a book that felt like it was written with you in mind (or conversely, one that most definitely wasn\u2019t)?<\/b><\/p>\n

Juan Rulfo\u2019s \u201cPedro P\u00e1ramo\u201d was not written with me in mind, and yet something about the language in the book felt like it was meant to be a private conversation across languages. Another book I have within reach all the time. There are lines early on: \u201cI was thinking of you, Susana. Of the green hills. Of when we used to fly kites in the windy season\u2026\u201d Something about the cadence of Rulfo\u2019s language drew me in.<\/p>\n

Q. What\u2019s something \u2013 a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else \u2013 that has stayed with you from a recent reading?<\/b><\/p>\n

The way that James in Li\u2019s \u201cThings in Nature Merely Grow\u201d says, \u201cOh,\u201d and how much weight this tiny word carries.<\/p>\n

Q. Do you have a favorite book or books?<\/b><\/p>\n

Too many to name, but another one of those I\u2019ll always have within reach books: Andre Dubus\u2019s \u201cSelected Stories.\u201d It\u2019s like carrying around an entire town of lives.<\/p>\n

Q. Do you have a favorite character or quote from a book?<\/b><\/p>\n

In Dickens\u2019s \u201cHard Times,\u201d Stephen Blackpool says: \u201cTis a muddle.\u201d No greater line of dialogue that I know.<\/p>\n

Q. Are you someone who must finish every book you start \u2013 or is it OK to put down the ones you don\u2019t connect with?<\/b><\/p>\n

I can put down a book. I was three pages from the end of Robert Stone\u2019s \u201cDog Soldiers,\u201d and something bugged me about a book I otherwise liked and respected. I put it down and never finished. Three pages out. I really should return to it, but I never have.<\/p>\n

Q. Do you have a favorite bookstore or bookstore experience?<\/b><\/p>\n

Dog Eared Books<\/a> in San Francisco. Armadillo\u2019s Pillow<\/a> on Sheridan Road, Rogers Park, Chicago. I\u2019d like to die in either store, if I wouldn\u2019t inconvenience the staff.<\/p>\n

Q. What\u2019s something about your book that no one knows?<\/b><\/p>\n

That a minor character, Uncle Solly, is the one I loved the most. I miss thinking about him, which is weird; once I finish a book, I move on. But I still wonder about him. Maybe I didn\u2019t do a good enough job imagining him on the page if he\u2019s still on my mind. Or maybe he\u2019s one of those characters that became independent of my imagination. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Q. If you could ask your readers something, what would it be?<\/b><\/p>\n

You want to get a coffee?<\/p>\n

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