THE LONELY VOICE #13: Walser on Mission Street
I confess I like reading stories about people who are more depressed than I am. Other people’s misery has a way of lifting the soul a little. Happy stories? They’re…
Peter Orner
39 posts
Census, 1980
An excerpt from Love and Shame and Love by Peter Orner, our November Rumpus Book Club selection (which is already receiving wonderful reviews, so now’s a great time to join…
THE LONELY VOICE #12: Cheever in Albania Or The Lonely Voice Hates Travel Writing
There are few things more riveting than watching people gossip in a language you don’t understand.
THE LONELY VOICE #11: Eudora Welty, Total Bad Ass
Greatest American short story writer? Ever? For me, it’s not even an interesting question. Welty in a landslide.
THE LONELY VOICE #10: Two Boys Fighting, Omaha Nebraska
Two boys are fighting. Neither is especially interested in beating the other up but once these things start, sometimes you’ve got no choice but to go ahead with it.
THE LONELY VOICE #9: We Don’t Have to Live Great Lives
I spent most of today re-reading Andre Dubus’s “Voices From the Moon”.[1] It is one of those stories. When you finish it you concentrate a little harder on your own…
THE LONELY VOICE #8: In Praise of Inaction, Bellow’s “The Old System”
I’ve been hearing the short story is dead again. The real money is in novels. Screenplays! A short story? Why don’t you go and write a haiku while you’re at…
Underground America: Permanent Anxiety
“The Arizona law is not the problem. The problem is that we continue, on all sides of the political spectrum, to not listen to those most directly affected by immigration…
THE LONELY VOICE #7, The Rumpus Short Story Column: My Son the Murderer
In honor of Governor Mark Sanford and Michael Jackson’s (bless his Indiana soul) favorite holiday, today’s Lonely Voice is devoted to dads, interesting, fascinating, All-American dads…
THE LONELY VOICE #6: The Rumpus Short Story Column, Death and the Dying Chekhov
The lonely voice is coming to you today from San Francisco General Hospital. I’m in the cafeteria. I come here sometimes. It’s a nice place to be distracted and the…
THE LONELY VOICE #5, The Rumpus Short Story Column: We Are All Lizzie Borden
This happens sometimes. I got murder on the brain this morning.
THE LONELY VOICE #4: John Edgar Wideman Confronts
Some stories cut so close you can only tell them in shards.