Orphans: Essays

By Charles D'Ambrosio

These eleven essays span continents, culture, and class. Fiction writer and essayist Charles D'Ambrosio inspects manufactured homes in Washington state; tours the rooms of Hell House, a Pentecostal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0972323457
• ISBN13: 9780972323451
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Clear Cut Press
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Great, lively, compassionate essays

"The essays in Orphans all turn on the axis of doubt, ambivalence, uncertainty and hesitancy. D'Ambrosio believes these qualities are essential to human nature, and finds himself in essay after essay crossing swords with the knights of absolutism, whether they bear the standard of fundamentalist Christianity, radical environmentalism or the Channel 24 Action News. . . . D'Ambrosio is a major talent. He blends the absurdist sensibility of Donald Barthelme with John Updike's plush prose and Philip Roth's dyspeptic humor to create a voice wholly his own. Whether his muse will some day deliver a great novel is an open question, but for now we have Orphans, and Orphans is plenty."

Fresh, startling and smart - read it

D'Ambrosio's writing is distinguished by its openness, wit and intelligence. "Orphans" is a pleasingly small book - you can fit it comfortably in your pocket, but there are entire worlds evoked in its pages. Whether he's examining his own queasy reaction to a religious "Hell House" display in Texas, the ambitions of a loopy eco-futurist, or life among the lost souls of a Chicago tavern, D'Ambrosio weaves together keen observations of the physical world with poignant forays into his personal history. It's funny, haunting and fierce.

A Rare Gem

This is a brilliant and moving book. D'Ambrosio has the incisive intelligence of a theoretical physicist and the soul of a poet. Combined with a seasoned craftsman's control of prose style, these qualities make for a truly impressive collection. His manner is frank and direct, without posturing, and the overall effect is a powerful one of juxtaposition: the lucid and feeling individual adrift in a world of crumbling values, brutish insensitivity and rampant hypocrisy. But D'Ambrosio, by virtue of his own humorous vulnerability, avoids the obvious pitfalls of a condescending or judgmental tone. Which isn't to say that he does not judge or despise the execrable when he finds it. Most of all he demonstrates that the only real weapon against the general stupidity and phoniness which abounds, is the beauty and nobility inherent in a truly personal and compassionate vision of life and language. This book is a rare gem.