Peter Orner is a novelist, story writer, and essayist—as well as a professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth. He's written two novels, three short story collections, and his essay collection, Am I Alone Here? Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Before moving to the region he was acting chair of the MFA writing program at San Francisco State. He's a former member of the Bolinas, CA Volunteer Fire Department and a current member of the Norwich VFD.
Lately I've been re-reading the work of Shirley Hazzard. Although Hazzard (who died in 2016) was recognized in her lifetime (and beyond it) as a major novelist, there's always seemed to me something stealth about her. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Hazzard was an Australian American who lived much of her adult life in Italy. And in her novels she has this chameleon-like ability to inhabit just about anybody she sets her mind to enter. She wrote a number of great books, The Transit of Venus and The Great Fire are probably her most well-known, but the book I've always been drawn to is her short burst of a novel, The Evening of the Holiday.
It's about two strangers who fall in love, both of them thinking, this will be temporary, this will just be a passing thing...He's Italian and married (separated); she's half Italian and single. It's only supposed to be a passing thing--right?--but Hazzard refuses to let Tancredi and Sophie off so easily. I've not finished re-reading it, and I've found myself, this week, rationing out the pages; Hazzard is that good, and like any great book, no matter how long or how short, I don't want it to end.
And I should mention that Hazzard's Collected Stories was published in November of last year, making it one of the best story collections to appear during the pandemic. It's got some hard-to-find gems.
Up next week: Allie Levy of Still North Books & Bar
Previous Enthusiasms: