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Love and Shame and Love

by Peter Orner (Goodreads Author)

3.29 of 5 stars 3.29 · rating details · 339 ratings · 96 reviews

Alexander Popper can't stop remembering. Four years old when his father tossed him into Lake Michigan, he was told, Sink or swim, kid. In his mind, he's still bobbing in that frigid water. The rest of this novel's vivid cast of characters also struggle to remain afloat: Popper's mother, stymied by an unhappy marriage, seeks solace in the relentless energy of Chicago; his b...more

Hardcover, 439 pages

Published November 7th 2011 by Little, Brown and Company (first published November 1st 2011)

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Dec 10, 2011 Ammie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Generational stories are rife in literature, from "One Hundred Years of Solitude" up to "Middlesex" and Oscar Wao. So ho-hum, you could say, here are three generations of the Popper family, growing up in and around Chicago, going off to war and work and college, getting married and divorced and pregnant; what is there that might be new to see here? What can you tell me that is different from what all of these other writers have told me?

That could go poorly for any author, but luckily for Peter...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Angie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I almost gave up on this book several times, but I'm glad I stuck with it to the end. This is the story of several generations of the Popper family. Instead of the sweeping epic you might expect, it's told in short bursts, collections of small, mostly ordinary moments among ordinary people. Most of the big events that happen to the family occur offstage or are referenced obliquely. Some of the set pieces are so well-done that minor characters--a music teacher, an old-boys-club judge--are more me...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Allizabeth Collins rated it 4 of 5 stars

Description:

Love and Shame and Love chronicles four generations of the Chicago-based Popper family as they struggle to come to terms with the choices they've made and the repercussions that followed.

Review:

Peter Orner is a wonderful American writer whose books, Esther Stories and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, blew me away with the quality and realistic styling of a true storyteller; so when I got the chance to read his newest title, Love and Shame and Love, I had to jump on it. As soon...more

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Dec 17, 2011 Telaina rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: rumpus

I honestly didn't know what to rate this book. It was so beautifully rendered in places and had so much truth in parts that I feel like it deserved four or five stars. But in the end I felt Orner kept us at a distance from the characters and I wasn't emotionally invested in any of them. They were each so miserable in their own way that it gave me no chance to discern between the generations. The beautiful mini chapter at the Tom Petty concert, the few paragraphs about Dukakis and some of the hea...more

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May 10, 2012 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

Love and Shame and Love is, at its loving and shameful heart, a Chicago book. An unabashedly my-kind-of-town Chicago book. And as a Chicagoan, I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone who wasn’t from Chicago could possibly catch all the nuances.

Take these lines, for example: “Lunches in the Walnut Room at the Bismarck Hotel. Long dinners with their beautiful wives at Gene & Georgetti or Mike Fish’s. Black-tie nights at the opera, Puccini on the Plains.” The Mayor makes his appearance and Harold...more Love and Shame and Love is, at its loving and shameful heart, a Chicago book. An unabashedly my-kind-of-town Chicago book. And as a Chicagoan, I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone who wasn’t from Chicago could possibly catch all the nuances.

Take these lines, for example: “Lunches in the Walnut Room at the Bismarck Hotel. Long dinners with their beautiful wives at Gene & Georgetti or Mike Fish’s. Black-tie nights at the opera, Puccini on the Plains.” The Mayor makes his appearance and Harold Washington and Bernie Epton and Jane Byrne with Jay McMullen and judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz. And Rogers Park, Lincoln Park, Highland Park and Wicker Park.

Within this City of Big Shoulders, three generations of Poppers grow up. The first – Seymour and his war-time contemporaries – are tough Jews who might have found themselves equally at home within the pages of a Saul Bellow novel. His son, Philip, a scrappy lawyer and wanna-be politician, gradually implode. That leaves their two sons, Leo and Alexander (simply called “Popper”), the melancholy anti-hero who is the key to must sort out the shambles of family history, including his own.

The three generations (and a fourth to come) are interwoven in short, fractured chapters – sometimes mere paragraphs – to simulate the fracturing of the family. We meet Seymour mostly through his letters, dated in the mid-1940s, which are very concise, optimistic, needy…and blind. As one generation moves into the next, the introspection becomes more pronounced.

So what, in the end, is this book about? It’s about Chicago, for sure, and the alternate reality of life in north shore Highland Park. It’s about generational shift from World War II to the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, to the end-of-century years. It’s about distinctive Chicago politics (although Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale make cameo appearances), and about what we love and what shames us. It has whiffs of Chicago writers: Stuart Dybek, Nelson Algren, maybe even Studs Terkel. It’s a nonlinear book that’s as fresh and bold and original as the city it’s set in…and others will likely either love or hate it.
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Nov 24, 2011 Lolly LKH rated it 2 of 5 stars

I know, here I go again not liking a novel with good reviews. I won't go into detail about this novel, just explain why I didn't like it.
The writing didn't flow for me. I hated the break up on each page or so. It prevented a flow I prefer in my reading. It felt choppy. It was like hitting every red light on a straight, very long road. The first few pages I thought.. yes, this is good. Then it all just plummeted for me.
It isn't that the writing is bad, it's actually well written, it just does no...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book. I stumbled on it after reading a column in the NYTimes by Orner in which he lamented the decline of his San Francisco neighborhood; a much-loved middle-class family was being driven out because their landlord sold the house they were renting to wealthy buyer. I liked the column, and I saw he had written a novel which got great reviews on Amazon, so I thought I'd try it.

The book is written in very short sections, ranging from half a page to a maximum of about six page...more

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Jan 02, 2012 A. rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love line drawings in novels. No one seems to do it anymore. It was good enough for Dickens, but today's writers don't think they need a few good good pen & ink drawings to move the story along. Orner's book is adorned with beautiful simple drawings at the beginning of each chapter. Many of them are of houses and rooms one is of dead fish washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan. Eric Orner (his brother?) did the drawings and the distinctive cover art.

Orner is trodding upon Bellow territory...more I love line drawings in novels. No one seems to do it anymore. It was good enough for Dickens, but today's writers don't think they need a few good good pen & ink drawings to move the story along. Orner's book is adorned with beautiful simple drawings at the beginning of each chapter. Many of them are of houses and rooms one is of dead fish washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan. Eric Orner (his brother?) did the drawings and the distinctive cover art.

Orner is trodding upon Bellow territory in this novel. Chicago from World War II through the 1970s forms the heart of his story. We are immersed in the lives of three generations of the Popper family. Grandpa Seymour (also my adored grandfather's name) is seen through terse, humorous and sometimes pitiful letters from the Asian theater of the war. His son Philip is never seen quite head on as he rises in prominence as a lawyer during the corrupt mayoral administrations that rain favors upon him. His son Alexander, born in the late 1960s, is the main focus of the story.

We meet Alexander when he's in college during the Michael Dukakis campaign. He falls in love with a beautiful girl in the library and we fall in love with Orner's ancedotal style, pithy observations and humor. Orner goes back through the generations and he lovingly portrays grandmother Bernice (a dancer who seems to be the same age as his own grandmother who the book is dedicated to) and Alexander's gorgeous mother Miriam. These two women are the emotional heart of the novel and the men hopelessly revolve in their orbit. Both Philip and his father Seymour never able to secure the love that they need in their insecurity.

It's a interesting novel and I greatly enjoyed reading it. I never felt quite close enough to any of the characters. The narrative jumps around quite a bit and while it does come together towards the end and Seymour's letters from the War are weaved into every chapter, the story never really builds up the emotional tension that it should.

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Apr 15, 2012 Janet rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: us-fiction

For me, shame but not love. Shame that I clearly missed whatever it was that has other readers stampeding to give it 5 stars.

Spread out among three generations of the Popper family – four if you count Ella who attains the ripe old age of 6 by novel’s end – the story jump cuts back and forth in staccato vignettes ranging from one to four pages. Despite each voice being unique I found it hard to get my bearings – like being at the ophthalmologist with the rapid switching of various lenses and bein...more

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Nov 27, 2011 Dayna Ingram rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: assigned-reading, capital-l-literature, reviewed

Peter Orner's sentences are beautiful. This is my favorite sentence of the whole book: "Nobody is more determined than a person running away"(p.411). I fully believe that Orner rewrote each sentence in this book at least once in order to get it sounding just right.

Like The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Love and Shame and Love is told in "episodes." I don't think this technique works as well here; it took me a while to get situated in the multi-threaded narrative. I love the letters from Seym...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Lesbianna rated it 5 of 5 stars

I usually write in all my books, but couldn’t bring myself to do so in Peter Orner’s Love and Shame and Love. It seemed wrong somehow, like taking a Sharpie to someone’s family photo album. Tightly crafted, both in language and structure, Orner’s chapters don’t speak so much as sting. Even when the narrative slaloms back and forth through time and point of view, the shotgun pace keeps you deeply wedded to the characters, their struggles, their almost triumphs. His lyrical, melancholic descriptio...more I usually write in all my books, but couldn’t bring myself to do so in Peter Orner’s Love and Shame and Love. It seemed wrong somehow, like taking a Sharpie to someone’s family photo album. Tightly crafted, both in language and structure, Orner’s chapters don’t speak so much as sting. Even when the narrative slaloms back and forth through time and point of view, the shotgun pace keeps you deeply wedded to the characters, their struggles, their almost triumphs. His lyrical, melancholic descriptions of Chicago also echoed the stolid prose of Stuart Dybek’s Coast of Chicago, and after reading, I almost wished I still lived there. LASAL made me want to have a love affair once more with the Second City, which is no easy feat, even if one is prone to masochism, which I am.

LASAL is about moments. In sparse, episodic bursts, the book muscles through four generations of a Jewish family in Chicago, the Poppers. Certain chapters are so A.D.D. they can barely even be considered paragraphs. Some people might find this style jarring. For me though, the absence was the point. The gaps, the drop-offs, which somehow also end up being clinging-ons, the memories loosened by time, and perhaps, willful neglect, all of these serve to further the book’s anthem of loss, the vivid, hypnotic nostalgia for a world, a life, a love, that never existed.

Here’s a too-long quote that illustrates this:

“One day she put on Bach's cello suites and wept without tears. Popper watched her, gripping his recorder. She trembled. He couldn't feel what she was feeling. He squinted and hummed a little, tried to follow some notes. Mrs. Gerstadt reached for him and dug her fingers into his shoulder blade as if to say, Don't twitch, listen, just listen, you little oaf, listen. And the sound in the room got deeper and more terrible, a long dire moaning and he tried to feel it, in his gut he tried to feel it---

A forgotten afternoon in a too hot room and Mrs. Gerstadt has just taken her hand from his shoulder and given up on him completely. Not only doesn't he have talent, he doesn't even have ears. Bach, and to him it could be the toilet flushing. And then--as now, this minute--all he wants is to jump on Mrs. Gerstadt and crush her sadness with his confusion and his sick sick wants, in the sunroom with the dead plants.”

Despite the brevity, or maybe because of it, I found myself reading certain chapters over and over again, savoring the minutia, which felt at times like being tenderly bludgeoned. The above vignette about Mrs. Gerstadt caused me to set the book down and write my own blog post about music and regret. This, to me, is the best kind of novel, the kind that compels you into creative action. This is where LASAL excels, all while beautifully capturing the tragic ordinariness of human existence.

The Popper clan, but especially Alex, whose version of the world we see most, beg to know the answers to questions they can’t quite articulate, and cling frantically to the things they’ve never truly achieved—love, belonging, purpose. It’s a testament to Orner’s abilities as a writer that these twingey bouts of depressing don’t fester in their own cynicism.

LASAL will break your heart, but in the best possible way. (less)

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Feb 24, 2012 Kasa Cotugno rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: location-usa-chicago, book-club, era-late-20th-century, themes-family

This epic novel follows four generations of the Popper family, a Jewish Chicago clan of alternating distinction and normality. It is constructed as if it were one of those drawers into which you have randomly tossed letters, mementos, pictures, matchbook covers -- we all have drawers like that. So that when you delve down into it, your memory is jogged and you are taken back to that time, that place. The story weaves together and all the characters and eras come alive. Chicago itself plays as mu...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Gw rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Peter Orner is one of my favorite contemporary writers -- his work has the poetic beauty of Michael Ondaatje and the wit of Grace Paley. Love and Shame and Love shares characteristics with his earlier work: distilled scenes (often very short chapters), a palpable sense of place, zingy (and honest and mordant) dialogue, and poignant (often thwarted) attempts to connect. Plot happens, too. Messed up family dysfunction, grandparents revealed as complex fuck-ups, class and ethnicity in the suburbs,...more

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May 17, 2013 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I gave this book 3 stars but I really think it deserves 3 1/2 stars. The book is told in vignettes that occur over several generations; the story is not in one continuous narrative. It flips between generations and events. The reader doesn't really get to know any one character really well. Yet the reader is made well aware of how unhappy all the people seem to be. The book reminded me in some ways of Crossing California by Adam Langer, but maybe that's just because both take place in Chicago. T...more

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Dec 01, 2011 Alvin rated it 5 of 5 stars

This novel is composed of vignettes and snippets, like a literary mosaic, which is perfect for those of us with impaired attention spans! It contains an amazing sense of place; the city of Chicago looms throughout. It is above all, though, a family saga, and as we get to know the characters (and they are characters in every sense of the word) and learn their dynamics, we see patterns that weave into the civic history permeating the book. Though few characters die off, there is no real conclusion...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Cdrueallen rated it 3 of 5 stars

A charming novel whose short poetic scenes expose a scattering of moments in the family lives of three generations of Chicagoans. Like realizing that vowels aren't really necessary to understand a sentence, this novel made me understand that narrative summary, or the transitions between scenes that compress story time and fill us in on what happened while the scenic doors were closed, isn't necessary for understanding a story. But it also made me understand that I miss these transitions that are...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Zach rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nkl

Loved this book. I felt like I was sitting back in my grandmother's kitchen, entirely engrossed in the story, with my dad sucking down Grandma's matzoh ball soup while standing over the kitchen sink -- except that youthful scene took place in Brooklyn, and Love and Shame and Love stars the city of Chicago. This is quite a loopery (to coin an Orneresque word), tumbling, poignant kaleidoscope of a novel. Set aside any usual notions of chronology or character development. I might say these characte...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Ben Mcfarlane rated it 3 of 5 stars

"My mother thought moving here would give us a better chance, you know, being around the children of rich kids like you. Now look at me. Look at us. My feet are asleep. The 12:22's late again."

"You think we won't make good?"

"No, that's the problem, we probably will. The suburbs work, it isn't that they don't. That's what's so disgusting. What are you pondering? You look pondery."

"Gina Amalfitano."

"Gina Amalfitano?"

"I slept with her last Saturday. I've been holding it in, savoring it."

"Damn, Popp...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Laura Anthony rated it 4 of 5 stars

The short chapters chronicle the three generations of a jewish family in Chicago. The setting of Chicago and the lake almost become another character in the book as it serves as more than just a backdrop to the lives of various Poppers, especially Alexandar Popper the main character known primarily as Popper. The chapters may be succinct but they are surely evocative. For example, Seymour Popper, the grandfather, reveals his desires and his personality fully through short letters written to his...more

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Nov 11, 2011 Denise rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone, People in the Chicagoland area

Recommended to Denise by: GoodReads Giveaway

Shelves: first-read, read-in-2011

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I won this book from a GoodReads giveaway. The book centers around the Popper family, four generations of it. The book actually skips around in point of view and date. That had me a little confused when I first started reading it but I eventually became used to it. This book seems to chronicle just how unhappy each generation of this family was. The grandmother(Bernice) and mother(Miriam) are unhappy in their marriages (and eventually both stray from their marriages), the father(Phillip) is unha...more

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Nov 21, 2011 Samantha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Orner's version of Chicago - and its surrounding areas - is real, almost palpable, even if you're not familiar with the area (or even the Midwest). I grew up in Highland Park, walked some of the same streets that his characters do, and I felt like I was home. (Or, really, in a very sad version of a place I used to call home.) But it's a good sad. Orner's writing in this book is direct and honest and beautifully crafted. His words and sentences alone are reason enough to keep reading. He experime...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Jaime Boler rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mobile-press

Family Feasts, Family Feuds: Peter Orner's Love and Shame and Love
By Jaime Boler

Love and Shame and Love by Peter Orner (Little, Brown and Company; 448 pages; $24.99).

Who can we count on to applaud our successes more than our families? Who do we make prouder by our accomplishments than those with whom we share blood ties? And yet who besides our families do we disappoint more by our failures? Who can we shame more than those closest to us? Just in time for the holidays is Peter Orner's novel Lov...more Family Feasts, Family Feuds: Peter Orner's Love and Shame and Love
By Jaime Boler

Love and Shame and Love by Peter Orner (Little, Brown and Company; 448 pages; $24.99).

Who can we count on to applaud our successes more than our families? Who do we make prouder by our accomplishments than those with whom we share blood ties? And yet who besides our families do we disappoint more by our failures? Who can we shame more than those closest to us? Just in time for the holidays is Peter Orner's novel Love and Shame and Love in which the author explores four generations of a Jewish family in Chicago. I am certain readers will see aspects of themselves in the Poppers.

Orner is the author of Esther Stories and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo. He has received two Pushcart Prizes for his work. Born in Chicago, Orner now lives in San Francisco, where he is on the faculty at San Francisco State University.

Love and Shame and Love is the story of Alexander Popper, his parents Philip and Miriam, his brother Leo, his grandparents Seymour and Bernice, his girlfriend Kat, and his daughter Ella. When Alexander was four years old, his father tossed him into Lake Michigan. He thus learned a good lesson about life in general at an early age: "Sink or swim, baby." Life can be a struggle to stay afloat; sometimes you dogpaddle and sometimes you go under. For the Poppers, "time passes, you swim, you spawn, sometimes you move around in schools, other times on your own, deloop, deloop, bop, bop, it's all a murky blur." There is a lot of love among the Poppers, but there is also a great deal of shame. As Orner writes, "Years pile up. Divorces. People fall out. People go bankrupt, to jail." The Poppers experience the typical ups and downs of an American family: bankruptcies, debts, divorces, affairs, failed political campaigns, and ruined relationships. Father and son interactions in particular falter in this novel. Alexander and his brother discover you "can't choose your father any more than you can choose the weather or how tall you are or how straight your teeth are…." Everyone in the book contributes in some way to the "shame" part of the title, and the characters become more real, relatable, and likable because of their disappointments. Alexander asks "what aren't I ashamed of," and his lament is an apt one. The Poppers come to realize that "only our disgraces are permanent." No one remembers victories.

One's place or standing in the family is very important in Love and Shame and Love, but physical place is also central to Orner's work. Reminisces begin with the address of the residence in which they live, as "you get attached to a place…." Continuing with the theme of place, the city of Chicago becomes a major character in the novel. Readers will marvel at Chicago in its heyday: "New England was stale, complacent. Chicago was about the new. Knock it down, big boy, and build me something bigger…." In the novel, the Sears Tower is the tallest building in the world, and Mayor Daley reigns supreme. Like any big city, though, Chicago can be brutal: "When this city's through with you, it spits you home to Oshkosh. It'll happen to us all. We've all got our Oshkoshes."

To tell his story, Orner uses short-shorts to take us back and forth through time. This is not an easy task to accomplish as it often leads to confusion on the part of the reader. Yet, that is not the case here as Orner does this seamlessly, despite having such a large cast of major characters with which he works.

This holiday season, as you spend time with your family, perhaps you will remember and celebrate the triumphs of the year, but maybe you will also remember the letdowns. The Poppers are a "modern ironical family," and we can all relate to them. We have all had our share of catastrophes. The Poppers will fascinate you just as much as they did me. Love and Shame and Love is the perfect read for the holidays because what is a family feast without a little family feud on the side?
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Jan 15, 2012 Derek rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed LASAL.

Orner clearly understands the craft of writing - every chapter is filled with descriptions and well turned phrases that sear themselves into your minds-eye and bring you into the scene. And although I'm sure that some readers will have an issue with the interweaving of the vignettes from different generations as soon as I was able to pick up on the characters I began to adapt to this structure and almost eagerly anticipate the continuation of a story line and a character t...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Beatrice rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people from Chicago, readers who like storytelling

Shelves: silly-or-not-so-silly-love-stories

For the first few hundred pages, this feels schizophrenic and frenetic with its two page chapters and almost constant change of narrators. But, it never feels out of Peter Orner's control.

So let me gush about him for a minute: Peter Orner is such a good writer! So visceral! So charming! So fun! When he gets a grip on humanity, from precocious child to lonely old man, you see all that talent and it's shocking and wonderful and addictive. Yes, I found myself getting annoyed with the novel's pace,...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Louise Silk rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This novel about the lives of three generations of a Chicago family couldn't hold my interest. It was arranged in a series of short scenes jumping all around. Without a consistent narrative, I was lost. So many small events and pared-down moments made me feel like there was nothing to grab onto and I wanted much more.

The best part of the book is it's interesting page arrangement and the lovely little illustrations throughout.

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Dec 30, 2011 Marjorie rated it 4 of 5 stars

As most of the events in this book spanned my own life, it was interesting to revisit a lot of them. I enjoyed getting to know this family and I think that there was a lot of autobiography mixed in with this novel. The writing was very, very good and the relationship among the characters was very believable. I liked the way it skipped back and forth among time periods, ranging from World War II to the present time.

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Jan 12, 2012 Emily Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Love and Shame and Love is about four generations of the Popper family living in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. It's a moody book about building things (families, business, politics) up and tearing things down. The bulk of the book focuses on Alexander Popper in the 70s and 80s. If I knew more about Chicago city politics at this time, those sections of the book probably would have been more enjoyable.

U of M friends note: Alexander Popper meets his girlfriend in the Shapiro Undergraduate Lib...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Patricia Geller rated it 4 of 5 stars

I loved The Esther Stories by Peter Orner. He said at a reading the other night that he loves short stories. While calling this a novel, it is short pieces following 3 generations of a Chicago family, laced through with the political events of the day. At times his writing took my breathe away and I wanted to copy a line or paragraph and at others, I would be impatient to get back to the characters I most liked.

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Feb 20, 2013 Jill Cordry rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is fantastic for anyone who has lived in Chicago. It took me back to the days and haunts of my later 20s and early marriage. However, not being a fan of "angst" or "coming of age", the locale, along with the truth of patronage politics and Jewish experience in Rogers Park and the North Shore, are what made a compelling read for me. Also loved the format: very short chapters and stories of different generations.

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Feb 16, 2012 Amanda Moore rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

My high opinion of this book is partly about a deeply personal connection to the setting--I grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago in the 70s and 80s and was drawn to the pitch-perfect recapturing of the place and time. It's nostalgia, and that kept me interested when the characters felt just out of my reach, the scope too sprawling at times. A great read despite any quibbling.

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About Peter Orner

Peter Orner was born in Chicago and is the author of three novels: Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (Little, Brown, 2006), and his most recent, Love and Shame and Love (Little, Brown, 2011) which was recently called epic by Daniel Handler, "...epic like Gilgamesh, epic like a guitar solo." (Orner has since bought Gilgamesh and is enjoying it.) Love and...more Peter Orner was born in Chicago and is the author of three novels: Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (Little, Brown, 2006), and his most recent, Love and Shame and Love (Little, Brown, 2011) which was recently called epic by Daniel Handler, "...epic like Gilgamesh, epic like a guitar solo." (Orner has since bought Gilgamesh and is enjoying it.) Love and Shame and Love is illustrated throughout by his brother Eric Orner, a comic artist and illustrator whose long time independent/alt weekly strip The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green was made into a feature film in 2008. Eric Orner's work is featured this year in Best American Cartoons edited by Alison Bechdel.

A film version of one of Orner's stories, The Raft, is currently in production and stars Ed Asner.

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller, won the Bard Fiction Prize. The novel is being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and German. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo is set in Namibia where Orner lived and worked in the early 1990's.

Esther Stories was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award and the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award.

Orner is also the editor of two non-fiction books, Underground America (2008) and Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives (co-editor Annie Holmes, 2010), both published by McSweeney's/ Voice of Witness, an imprint devoted to using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Harper's Magazine wrote, "Hope Deferred might be the most important publication out of Zimbabwe in the past thirty years."

Orner has published fiction in the Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, The Southern Review, and various other publications. Stories have been anthologized in Best American Stories and the Pushcart Prize Annual. Orner has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim and Lannan Foundations.

Orner has taught at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop (Visiting Professor, 2011), University of Montana (William Kittredge Visting Writer, 2009), the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College (2009) Washington University (Visiting Hurst Professor, 2008), Bard College (Bard Fiction Prize Fellowship, 2007), Miami University (Visting Professor, 2002), Charles University in Prague (Visting Law Faculty, 2000). Orner is a long time permanent faculty member at San Francisco State where he is an associate professor. He would like to divide his time between a lot of places, especially San Francisco and Chicago.(less)

More about Peter Orner...

Books by Peter Orner

Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives (Voice of Witness)

Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives

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Quotes from Love and Shame and Love

“The lake is always east. East is always the lake. Anywhere else he's ever been he never knows where he is.” — 2 people liked it

“Leo wondered what unknown sin they must have committed in some previous life to deserve this. The answer came the same way their feet later shocked to life in the warming hut after being so numb for hours- you think you'll never feel your toes again, and then all of a sudden life, damaged, stiffened, clammy, but life, dog-eat-dog life! We have not done a single thing to deserve this.” — 1 person liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11250055-love-and-shame-and-love?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327926973l/11250055.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11250055-love-and-shame-and-love?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Love and Shame and Love by Peter Orner[/url]

Love and Shame and Love

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