“Dazzling. . . The most revolutionary reimagining of Jefferson’s life ever.” –Ron Charles, Washington Post Winner of the Crook’s Corner Book Prize Longlisted for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize A 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.

Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

O'Connor, Stephen

United States

Penguin??Books

In mid-nineteenth-century New York, vagrant youth, both orphans and runaways, filled the streets. For years the city had been sweeping these children 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 firsthand accounts of orphans, Stephen O'Connor here tells of the orphan trains 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, Orphans Trains remains the definitive work on this little-known episode in American history.

Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed

History

Americas

University of Chicago Press

A history of the Children's Aid Society focuses on the orphan trains, which, between 1853 and 1929, sent some 250,000 abandoned children from New York City into the homes of families in the rural Midwest, describing the fates--for good or ill--of the youngsters who were part of this controversial child welfare program.

The Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed, 1853-1929

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

VIKING

A writing instructor at a New York City junior high school traces his attempts to educate youngsters from broken homes and violent neighborhoods, recounting how he invited his students to write about the slaying of a classmate. 25,000 first printing.

WILL MY NAME BE SHOUTED OUT?: Reaching Inner City Students Through the Power of Writing

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

Simon&Schuster

Putting a human face on dire statistics about inner-city schools, Stephen O'Connor describes how his junior high school students--struggling to make sense of lives touched by violence, poverty, and broken families--discovered their own voices by writing and performing two plays.

Will My Name Be Shouted Out

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

Touchstone

With the increase in high-tech nursing in the acute area, nurses need to have a basic grounding in the assessment and care of cardiac patients. Coming onto an acute ward for the first time, or beginning work there as a junior nurse, the speed of care and understanding of equipment can be crucial. This book aims to provide nurses with the practical information they need to know when working on an acute ward. Taking a problem-solving approach, the book provides a detailed background to cardiology and then looks at the immediate nursing care of cardiac patients in this acute setting, It goes on to examine the on-going care cardiac patients need once out of the acute state. The book also features detailed coverage of anatomy and physiology, combining theory with practice.

The Cardiac Patient: Nursing Interventions

Mosby International

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.

Northwest of Boston

Genre Fiction

Loom Pr

In our Autumn 2009 anthology, Colson Whitehead charts the rise to fame of a truth-telling comedian. Stephen O'Connor transports us to a cabin in the woods, where a young woman attempting to finish her dissertation in solitude becomes increasingly convinced she's not alone. Pasha Malla follows a young writer as he explores how tragedy influences art-and how life falls short of it. Marisa Silver tells the tale of three sisters who perceive the truth about their parents through the eyes of some unexpected visitors, and Lydia Davis' solitary narrator acutely details the behavior of three cows who live in a pasture just across the road.

Electric Literature No.2

Malla, Pasha

Silver, Marisa

Davis, Lydia

WHITEHEAD,COLSON

Electric Literature

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.

Here Comes Another Lesson: Stories

Free Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by O'Connor, Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by O'Connor, Stephen

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by O'Connor, Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings: A Novel

Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed

The Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed, 1853-1929

Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings: A Novel

WILL MY NAME BE SHOUTED OUT?: Reaching Inner City Students Through the Power of Writing

Will My Name Be Shouted Out

The Cardiac Patient: Nursing Interventions

Northwest of Boston

Electric Literature No.2

Here Comes Another Lesson: Stories