Orphans: Essays

These essays are terrific. Humane, poetic, insightful, filled with stunning perceptions,images, pity and sadness. D'Ambrosio is an excellent writer, and it's a joy to see him apply his skills to non-fiction. HOWEVER, this book's format is an insult to the first-rate work it contains. The book is only slightly larger than a deck of cards, and if your hands are any bigger than a small child's, it is problematic to hold. The pages resist opening in such a way that it's often a pain to read the words closest to the inner margin. The print is small and tightly packed, and, physically, it's just ridiculous. I feel a bit irritated on behalf of D'Ambrosio, whose wonderful work is given shoddy packaging that will not age well. I hope a real publisher gets the rights to this book some day, and prints a decent edition. A brief note on the one star review listed here: the person who wrote it appears fundamentally disturbed, and clearly has some extreme feminist agenda, and rather than judge work on its craft and effect, she insists that essayists conform to her fringe politics. That is, she can't stand that a caucasian man wrote from his own point of view, and she seems to willfully misinterpret the book as a series of short stories (which typically denotes a fictional element). I found nothing racist or sexist anywhere in the book. On the contrary, what emerges with total clarity is D'Ambrosio's profound humanity, honesty, and compassion.

"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."

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.

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.