Stephen O'Connor – författare

In mid-nineteenth-century New York, vagrant children, both orphans and runaways, filled the streets. For years the city had been sweeping these youngsters into prisons or almshouses, but in 1853 the young minister Charles Loring Brace proposed a radical solution to the problem by creating the Children's Aid Society, an organization that fought to provide homeless children with shelter, education, and, for many, a new family in the country. Combining a biography of Brace with first-hand accounts of orphans, Stephen O'Connor here tells of the orphan trams that, between 1854 and 1929, spirited away some 250,000 destitute children to rural homes in every one of the forty-eight contiguous states. A powerful blend of history, biography, and adventure, Orphan Trains remains the definitive work on this little-known episode in American history.

“Dazzling. . . The most revolutionary reimagining of Jefferson’s life ever.” –Ron Charles, Washington PostLonglisted for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel PrizeA debut novel about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, in whose story the conflict between the American ideal of equality and the realities of slavery and racism played out in the most tragic of terms.  Novels such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved, The Known World by Edward P. Jones, James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird and Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks are a part of a long tradition of American fiction that plumbs the moral and human costs of history in ways that nonfiction simply can''t. Now Stephen O’Connor joins this company with a profoundly original exploration of the many ways that the institution of slavery warped the human soul, as seen through the story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. O’Connor’s protagonists are rendered via scrupulously researched scenes of their lives in Paris and at Monticello that alternate with a harrowing memoir written by Hemings after Jefferson’s death, as well as with dreamlike sequences in which Jefferson watches a movie about his life, Hemings fabricates an "invention" that becomes the whole world, and they run into each other "after an unimaginable length of time" on the New York City subway. O''Connor is unsparing in his rendition of the hypocrisy of the Founding Father and slaveholder who wrote "all men are created equal,” while enabling Hemings to tell her story in a way history has not allowed her to. His important and beautifully written novel is a deep moral reckoning, a story about the search for justice, freedom and an ideal world—and about the survival of hope even in the midst of catastrophe.From the Hardcover edition.

Thirteen stories set in and around the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts, this volume is not in its third printing.

In “Northwest of Boston," Stephen O'Connor's characters live the human drama fully in stories that range from the humorous to the poignant. They go to the crossroads to face their demons, come to terms with the fleeting nature of life and love, and find the courage to follow their own compass. For some, that means an evolution; for others, a steadfast embrace of a world that is passing away.

Nestor, why does this creature hate me so much? Why does she hate my blood? Minerva Herrera, a young Colombian woman and devout Catholic, is the love of Nestor McCorleys life. And although twelve years of parochial school have left Nestor with mixed feelings about God and the Church, he and Minerva marry after a brief courtship. She quickly becomes pregnant and the couple enjoy a happy domestic life. But in the late stages of her pregnancy, as Minerva is lighting a candle to the Blessed Virgin, she is confronted in the church by a frightening woman who hurls a shocking curse at her and her unborn child. In the weeks following the incident, ominous things begin to happen. With his marriage on the rocks and his wifes health at risk, Nestor begins to search for answers. Who is this woman? Is someone seeking revenge for something in Nestors past? Is Minervas former lover trying to get her back? Nestor enlists the help of a priest as he revisits his Catholic grammar school and combs the city for answers. Everyone he meets becomes a suspect as Nestors life begins to unravel, and his worst nightmares become real.

STEPHEN O’CONNOR IS ONE OF TODAY’S MOST GIFTED AND ORIGINAL WRITERS. In Here Comes Another Lesson, O’Connor, whose stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Conjunctions, and many other places, fearlessly depicts a world that no longer quite makes sense. Ranging from the wildly inventive to the vividly realistic, these brilliant stories offer tender portraits of idealists who cannot live according to their own ideals and of lovers baffled by the realities of love. The story lines are unforgettable: A son is followed home from work by his dead father. God instructs a professor of atheism to disseminate updated Commandments. The Minotaur is awakened to his own humanity by the computer-game-playing "new girl" who has been brought to him for supper. A recently returned veteran longs for the utterly ordinary life he led as a husband and father before being sent to Iraq. An ornithologist, forewarned by a cormorant of the exact minute of his death, struggles to remain alert to beauty and joy. As playful as it is lyrical, Here Comes Another Lesson celebrates human hopefulness and laments a sane and gentle world that cannot exist.