Praise for ESTHER STORIES (2001) "There's startling intimacy in every story of Peter Orner's debut collection."--Judy Doenges, Washington Post "I was stunned by a sentence or two in every one of the works in Esther Stories." --Rick Moody, The Hartford Courant
"A luminous debut collection. . . .Like Amy Bloom and Charles Baxter, Orner has a gift for revealing how the tragic and the mundane occupy equal berths in our limited mental space."--John Freeman, Chicago Tribune
"Some of Orner's very short stories are the best of that form that I have read since Isaac Babel's."--Andre Dubus
"If the short story were in need of a future, it has been found in Peter Orner."--Dennis Lehane
"These are stories of unusual delicacy and beauty, and this is a remarkable collection."--Charles Baxter
"Orner doesn't simply bring his characters to life, he gives them souls."--Margot Livesey, New York Times Book Review