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Love and Shame and Love
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 Popper's mother, stymied by an unhappy marriage, seeks solace in the relentless energy of Chicago; his brother, Leo, shadow boss of the family, retreats into books; paternal grandparents, Seymour and Bernice, once high fliers, now mourn for long lost days; his father, a lawyer and would-be politician obsessed with his own success, fails to see that the family is falling apart; and his college girlfriend, the fiercely independent Kat, wrestles with impossible choices.
Covering four generations of the Popper family, Peter Orner illuminates the countless ways that love both makes us whole and completely unravels us. A comic and sorrowful tapestry of memory of connection and disconnection, Love and Shame and Love explores the universals with stunning originality and wisdom.
Covering four generations of the Popper family, Peter Orner illuminates the countless ways that love both makes us whole and completely unravels us. A comic and sorrowful tapestry of memory of connection and disconnection, Love and Shame and Love explores the universals with stunning originality and wisdom.
439 pages, Hardcover
First published November 7, 2011
42 people are currently reading
1486 people want to read
About the author
Peter Orner
40 books293 followersPeter 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews
November 25, 2011
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 not flow. I kept reading reviews that the characters are fantastic, but I don't agree. I admit, they are characters, and flawed but I just didn't feel I could get as deeply into them probably because as I am reading there is an abrupt change of what I am reading. Here I am getting into a character and boom, shove another one at me and break the story. I won't say it's a terrible novel, it isn't. I just hated the structure.
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 not flow. I kept reading reviews that the characters are fantastic, but I don't agree. I admit, they are characters, and flawed but I just didn't feel I could get as deeply into them probably because as I am reading there is an abrupt change of what I am reading. Here I am getting into a character and boom, shove another one at me and break the story. I won't say it's a terrible novel, it isn't. I just hated the structure.
December 10, 2011
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 Orner he neatly manages to sidestep the issue by making this a book of small happenings, of tiny beautiful moments, that almost incidentally happen to be set within the sweep of three generations of the same fairly ordinary family. The structure reflects that emphasis on small, pared down scenes; the book is 439 pages long and entirely split into short sections, none of which last more than a few pages. Perhaps within those few pages are the memory of a neighbor girl lying on her driveway and unexpectedly lifting her leg over her head, a moment spying adolescent protagonist Alexander feels burn into his head for life. Perhaps it's a vision of a lover dancing in a sweaty crowd in Levi's and a white t-shirt and worn hiking boots. A music lesson. A birthday party. Whatever it is, that snapshot gives you a view into somebody else's life, which is just as full of mini tragedies and dramas as your own.
In some ways this is an epic novel about non-epic happenings. There are no grand loves, no decades-spanning affairs, no acts of tremendous courage or passion or spite. This isn't a Greek tragedy or a folk tale or a fable. Eventually, that becomes its strength. It's more like real life, somehow.
That could go poorly for any author, but luckily for Peter Orner he neatly manages to sidestep the issue by making this a book of small happenings, of tiny beautiful moments, that almost incidentally happen to be set within the sweep of three generations of the same fairly ordinary family. The structure reflects that emphasis on small, pared down scenes; the book is 439 pages long and entirely split into short sections, none of which last more than a few pages. Perhaps within those few pages are the memory of a neighbor girl lying on her driveway and unexpectedly lifting her leg over her head, a moment spying adolescent protagonist Alexander feels burn into his head for life. Perhaps it's a vision of a lover dancing in a sweaty crowd in Levi's and a white t-shirt and worn hiking boots. A music lesson. A birthday party. Whatever it is, that snapshot gives you a view into somebody else's life, which is just as full of mini tragedies and dramas as your own.
In some ways this is an epic novel about non-epic happenings. There are no grand loves, no decades-spanning affairs, no acts of tremendous courage or passion or spite. This isn't a Greek tragedy or a folk tale or a fable. Eventually, that becomes its strength. It's more like real life, somehow.
May 11, 2012
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.
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.
April 16, 2012
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 being asked “clearer?” or “clearer?” - as the examination continues you’re not really sure of anything but your fatigue.
Ultimately, as a character study this came up woefully short. The Popper generations don’t intersect as much as orbit each other; the characters expand and contract but seemingly without intention, connection or understanding.
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 being asked “clearer?” or “clearer?” - as the examination continues you’re not really sure of anything but your fatigue.
Ultimately, as a character study this came up woefully short. The Popper generations don’t intersect as much as orbit each other; the characters expand and contract but seemingly without intention, connection or understanding.
February 11, 2012
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 memorable than the Popper family. I got a little Stuart Dybek feel (one of my favorite writers)at times, although that may be because Chicago is featured so prominently, although Orner's Chicago is heavy on the Democratic political subculture (with a defense of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis)instead of Dybek's Polish Catholic neighborhoods.
With the constantly shifting time periods and perspectives and sections not longer than a couple of pages, so much of the story of this family seemed to take place in the gaps, what wasn't said or explicitly spelled out in the book and what the family members didn't say to each other. As a result, the characters in the book seemed to repeat the same patterns of the previous generation. It made for a sometimes frustrating reading experience, but more resonant in retrospect.
With the constantly shifting time periods and perspectives and sections not longer than a couple of pages, so much of the story of this family seemed to take place in the gaps, what wasn't said or explicitly spelled out in the book and what the family members didn't say to each other. As a result, the characters in the book seemed to repeat the same patterns of the previous generation. It made for a sometimes frustrating reading experience, but more resonant in retrospect.
November 17, 2011
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.
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.
July 23, 2013
Stands out as one of the more challenging and interesting books I've read lately. Several elements (multi-generational story/strife, the Midwest, immigrant culture) recall Middlesex, yet the book manages to remain original. How does Orner do this? Through the vignette-structured narrative. I waffled for along time on whether or not I liked this non-arc narrative arc; ultimately I came down solidly on the "Yes" side. It has about as much arc as our own lives do, and--ultimately--that is its triumph. Orner resists giving us a neat storyline or a neat moral (some of the best emotional scenes start after the action - he's a master of absence) and we must make of the book what we will. Orner's other principal talent is his ability to convey an entire character (albeit, occasionally a caricature) in one sentence of sharply chosen, unique details.
Why not five stars? Simply because I don't think this will ever be amongst my favorite books. It rests close to that list, but doesn't quite break through, and I think that's because I found the main character pessimistic. Still, well worth the read (and a quick one, despite its length) and I look forward to reading Orner's other works.
Why not five stars? Simply because I don't think this will ever be amongst my favorite books. It rests close to that list, but doesn't quite break through, and I think that's because I found the main character pessimistic. Still, well worth the read (and a quick one, despite its length) and I look forward to reading Orner's other works.
November 27, 2011
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 Seymour during WWII; heartbreaking.
One thing I can't decide if I liked: All of the women are cheaters and home-wreckers. On the one hand, this is a welcome gender role-reversal. On the other hand, I have to wonder if Orner has some unprocessed Mommy issues.
All in all, another very strong novel from Orner that I get college credit for reading. Booyah.
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 Seymour during WWII; heartbreaking.
One thing I can't decide if I liked: All of the women are cheaters and home-wreckers. On the one hand, this is a welcome gender role-reversal. On the other hand, I have to wonder if Orner has some unprocessed Mommy issues.
All in all, another very strong novel from Orner that I get college credit for reading. Booyah.
January 3, 2012
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.
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.
July 14, 2013
"Love and Shame and Love" by Peter Orner is another excellent piece by a very talented writer.
In these snippets, stories and letters about the wider Popper family and Alexander Popper in particular chronology and causality are often eluded in favour of a more impressionist montage of the family history and their bond with each other.
Due to the mother's unhappiness the family moves to Chicago and large parts of the novel feature on the Jewish experience in post-WWII Chicago. As a matter of fact, much of the book functions as a history book on post-war America. Letters from the Navy by Seymour Popper to his wife, historic events, such as the shooting of Martin Luther King and many other cross overs of general life with that of the Popper family make this a very unique and gripping collection - despite the loose structure.
I found it hard to get into this non-linear telling of the story but found myself gradually lulled into the groove of it and have come to appreciate the logic behind it. Life is not linear as such, memory (an important theme in the book) disrupts the flow of outer events, such does late realisation and love.
The characters of the family are colourful and vivid, my personal favourites were Alex's older brother Leo with his odd independence and Alex's girlfriend Kat. Orner squeezes in a lot of literary critic and comments in the discussions between Alex and Kat, which makes for another great side to this rich reading experience.
Moody, clever, humorous and sentimental this book is quite a journey to take but a very rewarding one.
In these snippets, stories and letters about the wider Popper family and Alexander Popper in particular chronology and causality are often eluded in favour of a more impressionist montage of the family history and their bond with each other.
Due to the mother's unhappiness the family moves to Chicago and large parts of the novel feature on the Jewish experience in post-WWII Chicago. As a matter of fact, much of the book functions as a history book on post-war America. Letters from the Navy by Seymour Popper to his wife, historic events, such as the shooting of Martin Luther King and many other cross overs of general life with that of the Popper family make this a very unique and gripping collection - despite the loose structure.
I found it hard to get into this non-linear telling of the story but found myself gradually lulled into the groove of it and have come to appreciate the logic behind it. Life is not linear as such, memory (an important theme in the book) disrupts the flow of outer events, such does late realisation and love.
The characters of the family are colourful and vivid, my personal favourites were Alex's older brother Leo with his odd independence and Alex's girlfriend Kat. Orner squeezes in a lot of literary critic and comments in the discussions between Alex and Kat, which makes for another great side to this rich reading experience.
Moody, clever, humorous and sentimental this book is quite a journey to take but a very rewarding one.
February 25, 2012
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 much a part as any human -- this story could not have taken place anywhere else with the same verve. Just how much is Peter Orner's own personal history could be speculated on. At a local reading, he did admit to mining his relatives for their memories, so there is a great deal of verisimilitude to the histories contained herein Highly recommended.
December 1, 2011
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 or resolution to the story, just people going about their business and muddling through, just like life. If you want a plot driven novel, this won't be your cup of tea, but if you enjoy beautiful, clever language with flashes of wit and pathos, this should satisfy.
February 15, 2013
I loved this book after thinking I was giving up on it last year. It is a multi-generational story, but different than all I've read. It's basically like real life....photos from an album through the written word. The Poppers are an interesting bunch, but no different than any other family. But to hear Peter Orner tell it, it's unique.
December 15, 2011
This book doesn't just pick at the scabs, it peels them off. Granted, I am a Jewish lawyer raising a family in Highland Park. Reminds me of Phillip Roth's work in all the best ways. Orner is a beautiful writer. Sad in but in the happiest possible way. A must read.
January 23, 2012
I didn't finish this book...I don't care what the nuns told us in grade school, I just couldn't do it. I think this might be a good book but I didn't like the style of writing...very disjointed and quirky.
May 23, 2014
Insightful, beautifully written family saga-in-snippets. The narrative functions much in the same way memory does, in seemingly disconnected vignettes that slowly assemble themselves into a multifaceted collage.
Want to read
November 8, 2011I am not sure about this one, but I am intrigued...."....Peter Orner illuminates the countless ways that love both makes us whole and completely unravels us."
Read
August 3, 2016UGH! Contemporary novelists should never try to channel Richard Brautigan.
April 2, 2013
Great writing and so much fun to read about HP
August 20, 2020
"Why can't I cast away the mask of play and live my life?"
A family saga recounting three generations that lived in and around Chicago. I understand why this would not be of interest to many people, but I loved it. A hilarious piece of postmodern realism. The book has a very staccato rhythm: it is composed of dozens of intense little vignettes. A novel in short story form. There's no real plot to speak of -- just countless scenes from the lives of this family. One of Orner's major talents is his acute observations of human relationships and lives. Reminiscent of "Here I Am," or a Jewish Don DeLillo. Really extraordinary. Honest and wildly entertaining. A family coming to terms with the truths of their lives versus the lies they have built their memories from.
A family saga recounting three generations that lived in and around Chicago. I understand why this would not be of interest to many people, but I loved it. A hilarious piece of postmodern realism. The book has a very staccato rhythm: it is composed of dozens of intense little vignettes. A novel in short story form. There's no real plot to speak of -- just countless scenes from the lives of this family. One of Orner's major talents is his acute observations of human relationships and lives. Reminiscent of "Here I Am," or a Jewish Don DeLillo. Really extraordinary. Honest and wildly entertaining. A family coming to terms with the truths of their lives versus the lies they have built their memories from.
January 12, 2023
The material in this book is beautiful. I love the layout of small stories which compile into a narrative, but I especially love that each of them articulate perfectly specific feelings that you might not get to feel in any other medium. I think what's important about this book isn't the actual story but the connection between individual's lives and the role we all play in each others. Each character has a unique opinion of the others, which adds complexity and realism to them. It is a beautiful example of the power and purpose of literature. It isn't always to make you feel suspense, surprise, or mystery. It exists also to make you feel connection to paper in the way people connect with each other; a shared experience of attitudes and feelings which are gained throughout life.
April 28, 2019
Not even finished the first half of this book and I am feeling some serious author jealousy. Peter Orner has an unparalleled precision with his language. It seems closer to a collection of flash fiction into a novel, but the snippets we receive are exquisite examples and ultimately tie together beautifully. My wife has asked that I stop interrupting whatever she is doing to read to her from this book. I have to buy another copy because I am barely resisting the temptation to mark up the copy I got from the library. Amazing work! I am super psyched to read the rest of his work now.
May 25, 2018
i wish i had gotten more out of this book. it's long, one review compared it to an epic. the poetic bits woven in between make it worth it, the attention to small moments that stick out, just as they do in memory. orner's piece in modern love is one of my all-time favourites, i go back and reread it every couple of months. there's the same sensitivity in his writing here, but i'm probably too frazzled to get the most out of it now.
March 15, 2024
I’m not sure why it took me so long to get through this. I think because every time I picked it up, I wanted to reread it from the beginning, or almost from the beginning, because it was some wholly original prose or POV that made me think, wait - what did I just read??! On repeat for the entire novel. Orner follows in the great literary tradition of bellow, Dybek, and Aleksandar Hemon for the way in which Chicago gets celebrated - and excoriated - on the page. Brilliant!
September 1, 2025
Some reviewers on this site complain about choppiness, but it's not really that hard to follow. You have to work a little, and why not? Look how hard the author worked. Despite the short sections and nonlinear structure, or I would argue because of them, the characters are fully formed and alive on the page. There is so much humanity in these pages, and humor, and joy and pathos--all without melodrama or excessive sentimentality.
August 20, 2019
A novel in very short stories. Glimpses really. The Popper family, but after while mostly about Chicago. The city, the Loop, the Lake, the North Shore, the South Side, Mayor Daly. The chapters/stories glitter with little telling details. A bit confusing, this big family with several generations, but continually interesting.
April 5, 2021
An illuminating book about the shadow life that exists between the lines that are drawn by the passing years. Characters are likable despite their obvious flaws. Beautifully hewn vignettes, although the skipping through time and perspective keeps the reader on her toes. Overall a quick and charming read.
October 8, 2024
Not the best lay out of a book for me, but I liked it. It was hard to follow all the characters with the different time lines all thrown together and jumbled up. I felt grounded in the settings I knew in the suburbs of Chicago. The short part about Tome Petty at Alpine Valley was grounding for me, having just been there.
October 13, 2017
Maybe it's just me, but this book was quite boring. I forced myself to finish it. The chapters are short, which I usually do well with, but I found it hard to get through anyway. The book lacks cohesion, making its potential lost on me.
June 29, 2023
Between moving/starting a new job- this book got pushed to the back burner. Definitely shouldn’t have taken 846261 days to finish, and would have been better if I read it all in normal human timing to remember all the small details and keep characters straight
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