At the Fairmont (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading Book 16)

"Peter Orner’s 'At the Fairmont' is a story of regret tinged with exhilaration: an older woman remembers her five days of autonomy and freedom in a hotel room before her husband returns from Tokyo," writes author and guest editor Ann Beattie in her introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading. "In the story’s narrative present, the returned husband has been dead for years, the lover never seen again—though he sends the wife a surprising portrait in which she, herself, is architectural (the lover is a draftsman). The drawing is redolent with undertones of Raymond Carver’s great story 'Cathedral,' in which a sighted man tries to explain to a blind man what a cathedral is, and in so doing explains to himself its significance, as well."

About the Author:
Peter Orner is the author of two acclaimed novels, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo and Love and Shame and Love, and the collections Being Ester and Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge. Stories from Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, which includes "At the Fairmont," first appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeney's, Granta, A Public Space, and other journals. Orner is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes. Born in Chicago, he now lives in San Francisco

About the Guest Editor:
Ann Beattie's stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories of the Century as well as in several O. Henry Award collections. She has received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Rea Award for the Short Story, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is the author of one novella, Walks With Men; seven novels, including Chilly Scenes of Winter and My LIfe, Starring Dara Falcon; and nine collections of short stories, the latest of which is The New Yorker Stories. Her most recent book is Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life. Beattie lives in Key West, Florida and Maine.

About Recommended Reading:
Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition (and readership) they deserve.