Book of the Week

"Sometimes you just have to save yourself and then run like hell. There'll always be time for nobility, honor, sorrow, remorse, yes, maybe even love in the morning," says a young boy in Peter Orner’s newest book of short stories, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge. He, however, is one of the few in this collection to advocate for such an approach. The rest of the characters—like too many of us—remain stuck in difficult, confusing lives. A father drives his sick daughter through a hurricane, only to live the rest of his life anticipating her death. A young woman wonders why her lover disappears from their shared home—and blames herself. Orner's settings vary wildly—Kentucky, Chicago, New York, Nebraska—as do his time periods, which include from 1912 to 1947 to 1979 to present day. All this roaming has a cumulative effect, turning the collection into a kind of dark kaleidoscope of American moments, when both the powerful and powerless wonder "why can't our dreams be content with the terrible facts?"