Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Orlean (The Library Book) offers a master class in nonfiction writing and an indelible portrait of a bygone era of magazine journalism in this excellent personal history. Prompted by the 25th anniversary of her bestseller The Orchid Thief, Orlean takes stock of what she's seen and learned since she took her first writing job in 1978 at an alt-weekly in Portland, Ore. The author recalls landing that gig with little more than pluck and a single clip, and describes an on-the-fly education that taught her to chase her own curiosity and develop the distinctive voice that would bring her fame. She brings readers behind the scenes of some of her best-known long-form articles, including profiles of an ordinary 10-year old boy from New Jersey for Esquire, surfer girls in Hawaii for Outside Women (which inspired the film Blue Crush), and an Ashanti king who worked as a taxi driver in Long Island for the New Yorker, describing how she infused each piece with surprising layers of complexity and wonder. Journalism junkies will also enjoy Orlean's tales of working alongside publishing icons including Tina Brown, Robert Gottleib, and Anna Wintour. Writers new and established will savor every word. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (Oct.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Orlean (On Animals) did not set out to be a public figure, but this joyful memoir of her journey to becoming a writer demonstrates how it was nearly inevitable. Unlike much of her purposely nonchronological work, this book charts the writer's life from birth to the present day, ending with the 2025 Los Angeles fires. Orlean always wanted to be a writer, and her career path--from writing for small alternative weeklies in Portland and Boston to being a staff writer at the New Yorker, all while painstakingly producing books on the side--is represented here in an unstinting look at the challenges and risks of making it as a professional writer, alongside everyday tragedies and disappointments. Orlean's sense of adventure and narration of her daily life make it an entertaining and often hilarious journey. Particular highlights include Orlean's work on the 2002 film Adaptation, in which Meryl Streep played a fictional version of her, and one notorious drunken night Orlean spent on Twitter, which she captures with self-deprecating good humor. VERDICT Sure to delight aspiring writers studying the craft. Any fan of Orlean's will appreciate this behind-the-scenes look at how she produced her most well-known pieces.--Margaret Heller
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A celebration of a supremely accomplished writing life, with a few lumps along the way. The occasion for this look back at a sterling writing career, in part, was Orlean's realization that the 25th anniversary ofThe Orchid Thief was fast upon her, a signal moment indeed. Yet, she demurs, she had always steered clear of writing a memoir: "I'm used to looking outward, not inward; I yearn to bring attention to hidden worlds, not to my own." The hidden worlds of others have proved rich mines in the past, but so, too, Orlean's own life turns out to be, from a nerdy, bookish childhood in Shaker Heights, Ohio (easy to lampoon for its suburbanness, but, she adds, also an unexpected locus for the Civil Rights Movement), to her first efforts at journalism and on to the glories and disappointments of the writer's daily work. Orlean is often funny, especially when telling stories on herself, as when she had to have her nose cauterized after a snort too many, "which embarrassed me to no end"; she can also be steely, as when she recounts how she became a target for QAnon after tweeting "I'm so tired of old white men" in response to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing. For all the pleasures and pains herein, though, the great value of this book is the MFA in nonfiction writing that Orlean packs into it, full of some of the most useful advice on craft that any budding (or long-practicing, for that matter) writer could ask for, such as when she writes, "Every significant move forward for me has occurred because I developed ideas for myself. Story ideas areeverything." And on that note, how she got the idea forThe Orchid Thief is a tale that alone is worth the price of admission. A spry, entertaining memoir/writing workshop by a nonfiction artist at the top of her game. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
