Still No Word from You: Notes in the Margin

Finalist for the Vermont Book Award Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay A new collection of pieces on literature and life by the author of Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the NBCC Award for Criticism Stationed in the South Pacific during World War II, Seymour Orner wrote a letter every day to his wife, Lorraine. She seldom responded, leading him to plead in 1945, “Another day and still no word from you.” Seventy years later, Peter Orner writes in response to his grandfather’s plea: “Maybe we read because we seek that word from someone, from anyone.” From the acclaimed fiction writer about whom Dwight Garner of The New York Times wrote, “You know from the second you pick him up that he’s the real deal,” comes Still No Word from You, a unique chain of essays and intimate stories that meld the lived life and the reading life. For Orner, there is no separation. Covering such well-known writers as Lorraine Hansberry, Primo Levi, and Marilynne Robinson, as well as other greats like Maeve Brennan and James Alan McPherson, Orner’s highly personal take on literature alternates with his own true stories of loss and love, hope and despair. In his mother’s copy of A Coney Island of the Mind, he’s stopped short by a single word in the margin, “YES!”—which leads him to conjure his mother at twenty-three. He stops reading Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Beginning of Spring three quarters of the way through because he knows that finishing the novel will leave him bereft. Orner’s solution is to start again from the beginning to slow the inevitable heartache. Still No Word from You is a book for anyone for whom reading is as essential as breathing.
ASIN: 1646221362
VSKU: PKV.1646221362.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Orner, Peter
Binding: Hardcover
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: A well-loved companion. Corners and cover might show a little wear, and you could find some notes or highlights. The dust jacket might be MIA, it might have been a library book and extras aren't guaranteed—but the story's all there!