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Doreen Orion, more than musings from a bus
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Doreen Orion and her poodle Miles in Sitka, Alaska
Doreen Orion, a Colorado author whose book "Queen o the Road" was published last year by Broadway Books, asked me a couple weeks ago to review it. I dutifully told her it might take me a long time to read and review since I'm so slow to produce these Examiner pieces.
Orion replied in an e-mail: "No problem, Bob. Hope you enjoy!"
Which I found out is the breezy way Orion writes her book.
Subtitled "The Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband and a Bus with a Will of Its Own," the book is Orion's story of going on a one-year trip with her psychiatrist husband, in a bus with those three animals and, I guess, all of those shoes.
(I haven't finished reading the book, so I don't know yet about the shoes. And the reason I'm writing this piece before finishing the book will be explained further down this electronic page. Be patient, gentle reader.)
In place of the commas I've inserted in the subtitle to separate all its items, Orion's book-cover illustrator has inserted little icons, including 14 little high-heel shoes (but not one pump!), and that's also the way Orion writes her book. Cute.
Orion is an accomplished Colorado author. Her first book, "I Know You Really Love Me" was so well written on the topic of stalking that Orion won the Colorado Authors' League Top Hand Award for Nonfiction and later lectured police departments on the subject. She also is a psychiatrist but has allowed her practice to go dormant in favor of continued writing.
Her writing is why, really, I wanted to do a piece on her book even before I did a full review. I like it, it's good writing.
I've done a pre-review piece on Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput's book, "Render Unto Caesar," which I will review soon — shortly after I give you the third and final chapter of Christian Wiman's interview, which I still owe you.
But the medium the Examiner provides demands short, quick pieces of writing, and Orion's writing — breezy and entertaining as it is — demanded a quicker response than I would be able to give were I to wait until I finish the book.
The writing is delightful, funny, entertaining (as I've already said) and very modern.
You'd enjoy the book, I think, if you don't mind reading less-than-serious subject matter between all that heavy literary lifting I know you do every day. So, this is the extent of my initial piece on Orion's book, "Queen of the Road."
Hope you enjoy!
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