Orientation: A Story: And Other Stories

Daniel Orozco

Sep 2011 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About this ebook

Orientation introduces a writer at the height of his powers, whose work surely invites us to reassess the landscape of American fiction.

A new employee's first-day office tour includes descriptions of other workers' most private thoughts and actions.

"Orientation" is a story from Daniel Orozco's critically acclaimed collection of the same name, which leads the reader through the hidden lives and moral philosophies of bridge painters, men housebound by obesity, office temps, and warehouse workers. He reveals the secret pleasures of late-night supermarket trips for cookie binges, exceptional data entry, and an exiled dictator's occasional piss on the U.S. embassy. A love affair blooms between two officers in the impartially worded pages of a police blotter; during an earthquake, the consciousness of the entire state of California shakes free for examination.

Ratings and reviews

The title story is probably my favorite in this collection probably because it's second person--the reader is the character and when that's done right (in my opinion Orozco does it near flawlessly in "Orientation") it's satisfying in a strange and kinda powerful way.

This short story blends the mundane, humorous, sad, and disturbing into a composite of the lives that toil away (or do they?) inside the office space.

Hilarious! That just about sums up what I have just read. It took me back to "orientation" at jobs, especially whenever I would do Temp work. This was classic! Orozco's writing is definitely on point.

About the author

Daniel Orozco's stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, The Best American Essays, and the Pushcart Prize anthology, as well as in publications such as Harper's Magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story, McSweeney's, Ecotone, and StoryQuarterly. He was awarded a 2006 NEA Fellowship in fiction, and was a finalist for a 2006 National Magazine Award in fiction. A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford, he teaches creative writing at the University of Idaho.