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About
New York Times Notable Books
Winner of the Washing State Book Prize
Finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
Charles D'Ambrosio's essay collection Orphans spawned something of a cult following. In the decade since the tiny limited-edition volume sold out its print run, its devotees have pressed it upon their friends, students, and colleagues, only to find themselves begging for their copy's safe return. For anyone familiar with D'Ambrosio's writing, this enthusiasm should come as no surprise. His work is exacting and emotionally generous, often as funny as it is devastating. Loitering gathers those eleven original essays with new and previously uncollected work, so that a broader audience might discover one of our great living essayists. No matter his subject-Native American whaling, a Pentecostal "hell house," Mary Kay Letourneau, the work of J.D. Salinger, or, most often, his own family-D'Ambrosio approaches each piece with a singular voice and point of view; each essay, while unique and surprising, is unmistakably his own. *Loitering makes NPR's 2014 Best of the Year list
*Time Out New York names Loitering one of the Top Ten Books of the Year
*Loitering makes the Pacific Northwest Bestseller List
*Loitering shortlisted for the PNBA awards
"[W]e can see he is one of the strongest, smartest and most literate essayists practicing today. This, one would hope, is his moment. . . .These [essays] are highly polished, finished, exemplary performances.
-Phillip Lopate, New York Times Book Review
... Powerful... highlights D'Ambrosio's ability to mine his personal history for painful truths about the frailty of family and the strange quest to understand oneself, and in turn, be understood.
-Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Erudite essays that plumb the hearts of many contemporary darknesses.
-Kirkus
Important . . . one of the most profound essayists at work today.
-Bookforum
Loitering: New and Collected Essays should help position D'Ambrosio as one of the major essayists now working in the genre.
-Los Angeles Review of Books
[D'Ambrosio's] toolkit, finite and familiar, is the English language, the same one ticker-taping through your conscious mind and mine, but with it he constructs sentences, paragraphs, entire pages of such sustained insight and fluency that you can't help but feel a little fraudulent as a fellow user of the same mother tongue.-The L Magazine
Loitering seems at heart an act of remembrance, a collection that grapples with the past in order to bring it to us still warm and pulsating. The brutality of D'Ambrosio's nostalgia saves it from romanticism and instead transforms it into a deeply physical experience.
-The Carolina Quarterly
Loitering, by Charles D'Ambrosio, gets something deeply right about being uncertain, being in-between, being human. Its essays refuse the violence of imposing too much resolution on the world. This praise might sound abstract, but it's more like a kind of closed-eye, clenched-fist gratitude: Thank you. These essays help me believe in what's holy in the mess.-Leslie Jamison, New York Times
D'Ambrosio hasn't published anything less than brilliant, but Loitering is remarkable even by his standards.-Portland Mercury
Throughout the collection, D'Ambrosio's words conjure metaphorical 'thought light bulbs' in the reader's mind as he strikes feelings deep within - about TV news reporters, whale conservation and the magic of trains - all eloquently described in his rich, affecting prose.
-The Inlander
As a witness to human longing and delusion, D'Ambrosio is among our most eloquent voices. Reading Loitering I thought about David Foster Wallace a lot. D'Ambrosio is a different sort of writer: more personal, more openly haunted, preoccupied by the rites of Catholicism. But he shares with Foster Wallace a gift for exactitude, erudition, and moral con
Winner of the Washing State Book Prize
Finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
Charles D'Ambrosio's essay collection Orphans spawned something of a cult following. In the decade since the tiny limited-edition volume sold out its print run, its devotees have pressed it upon their friends, students, and colleagues, only to find themselves begging for their copy's safe return. For anyone familiar with D'Ambrosio's writing, this enthusiasm should come as no surprise. His work is exacting and emotionally generous, often as funny as it is devastating. Loitering gathers those eleven original essays with new and previously uncollected work, so that a broader audience might discover one of our great living essayists. No matter his subject-Native American whaling, a Pentecostal "hell house," Mary Kay Letourneau, the work of J.D. Salinger, or, most often, his own family-D'Ambrosio approaches each piece with a singular voice and point of view; each essay, while unique and surprising, is unmistakably his own. *Loitering makes NPR's 2014 Best of the Year list
*Time Out New York names Loitering one of the Top Ten Books of the Year
*Loitering makes the Pacific Northwest Bestseller List
*Loitering shortlisted for the PNBA awards
"[W]e can see he is one of the strongest, smartest and most literate essayists practicing today. This, one would hope, is his moment. . . .These [essays] are highly polished, finished, exemplary performances.
-Phillip Lopate, New York Times Book Review
... Powerful... highlights D'Ambrosio's ability to mine his personal history for painful truths about the frailty of family and the strange quest to understand oneself, and in turn, be understood.
-Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Erudite essays that plumb the hearts of many contemporary darknesses.
-Kirkus
Important . . . one of the most profound essayists at work today.
-Bookforum
Loitering: New and Collected Essays should help position D'Ambrosio as one of the major essayists now working in the genre.
-Los Angeles Review of Books
[D'Ambrosio's] toolkit, finite and familiar, is the English language, the same one ticker-taping through your conscious mind and mine, but with it he constructs sentences, paragraphs, entire pages of such sustained insight and fluency that you can't help but feel a little fraudulent as a fellow user of the same mother tongue.-The L Magazine
Loitering seems at heart an act of remembrance, a collection that grapples with the past in order to bring it to us still warm and pulsating. The brutality of D'Ambrosio's nostalgia saves it from romanticism and instead transforms it into a deeply physical experience.
-The Carolina Quarterly
Loitering, by Charles D'Ambrosio, gets something deeply right about being uncertain, being in-between, being human. Its essays refuse the violence of imposing too much resolution on the world. This praise might sound abstract, but it's more like a kind of closed-eye, clenched-fist gratitude: Thank you. These essays help me believe in what's holy in the mess.-Leslie Jamison, New York Times
D'Ambrosio hasn't published anything less than brilliant, but Loitering is remarkable even by his standards.-Portland Mercury
Throughout the collection, D'Ambrosio's words conjure metaphorical 'thought light bulbs' in the reader's mind as he strikes feelings deep within - about TV news reporters, whale conservation and the magic of trains - all eloquently described in his rich, affecting prose.
-The Inlander
As a witness to human longing and delusion, D'Ambrosio is among our most eloquent voices. Reading Loitering I thought about David Foster Wallace a lot. D'Ambrosio is a different sort of writer: more personal, more openly haunted, preoccupied by the rites of Catholicism. But he shares with Foster Wallace a gift for exactitude, erudition, and moral con