Orientation: and other stories
Faber & Faber – $23.00 (On Sale 5/24)
If I list the names of these stories, you might see around the corner. How about the guy who tells you what’s what on your first day at the office, and then gives you the 411 on everyone else? I know that guy (he got fired from the office in Then We Came to the End). Or the quiet guy who works in your warehouse, and runs early in the morning? He took out the fat girl, and got away with it. The same guy warned you, by not saying anything to anyone, and he was nice to the old lady who retired which is code for: be weary of guys who are nice to old people. The nicknamed characters who paint the Golden Gate Bridge.
Daniel Orozco forces the vertigo on you, the wind holds you up, just long enough to have the life torn out of you. Life, it’s a sharp thing when you don’t have much of it left. You’ll feel the pain of being fat, defecating in the tarp that you’ve put down in your bathroom because you can’t sit on your toilet. You haven’t seen your penis in years. You eat when you aren’t hungry. Neighbors bring you food, they make you fat, and you love it. There is a dictator, he’s a miserable bastard, I don’t like him. Neither will you. Who really cares what you think? Orozco certainly doesn’t.
These are the kind of stories that the character ‘Blake’ from Glengarry Glen Ross would write if he hadn’t already ripped you off with a shady land deal. These tales are fluid, in a kind of “wait, you think you have it bad?…nah, you haven’t talked to me” kind of way. You, like me, will pick this book up and wonder why you haven’t heard of Daniel Orozco before. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.
-JR
One Response to “312 words on 'Orientation: and other stories'”
May 24, 2011
Notable New Releases 5/24/2011 « Three Guys One Book[...] writer, and this book is cause for celebration.” —Dan ChaonDon’t forget JR’s 312 words on Orientation by Daniel Orozco.3) Remember Ben ClaytonStephen HarriganHarrigan’s first novel was a big fun classic-style [...]