"Joyride" | Reviewed by Pat Sainz

Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1992. She is the author of the best-selling novels “The Orchard Thief “(1998), “Rin Tin Tin: the Life and the Legend” (2011), and “The Library Book” (2018). Orlean has written for television and for Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Esquire magazines.      

         “Joyride” is a memoir of Orlean’s writing career. At age 70, she is still writing and retains the same curiosity about the unusual or elusive subjects that originally propelled her towards her career. Orlean writes nonfiction articles and books that read like fiction. She immerses herself into the lives of people who themselves are usually passionate and resilient. She writes sympathetically, with humor, and with respect about each of her topics.   

            Orelan’s father wanted her to be a lawyer. Orlean persuaded him to give her one year after college to prove that she could make a living as a writer. She left Shaker Heights, Ohio, and started her career in Portland, Oregon, writing for a local newspaper in 1977. By 1992, Orlean was a staff writer for The New Yorker in New York City.

            Orlean’s book “The Orchid Thief” was made into “Adaptation,” in 2002, a movie starring Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage. (Meryl Streep received an Oscar nomination for her performance.) The movie “Blue Crush” also was made in 2002 and was based on a magazine article Orleans wrote in 1998  about women surfers in Maui.

            Orlean makes a career out of writing on topics likely to be unfamiliar to her readers. She based her book “The Orchid Thief” on a brief newspaper article about the arrest of a horticulturist who was caught stealing orchids in a protected Florida reserve. She got the idea to write about libraries when she discovered that the Los Angeles Central Library lost 400,000 books in a 1986 fire. (The news was overshadowed by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.) Orleans learns everything she can about a subject and then uses her writing to inform people about what she has learned. 

            Orlean followed up on her childhood fascination with a toy figurine of Rin Tin Tin, owned by her grandfather, by writing a book about the Hollywood film star. The famous dog was an orphaned puppy adopted by a WWI soldier, eventually brought to Hollywood where he became the superstar he and his lineage share today. 

            Orleans recounts the demise of her first marriage, her marriage to her current husband, the birth of her son, and her interactions with famous people. She was a speech coach for Obama in 2008. She was a neighbor of Eliot Spitzer, New York’s former governor. She collaborated with editors Robert Gottlieb and Tina Brown at The New Yorker with Spike Jonze, Meryl Streep, Nicholas Cage, Tilda Swinton, and Brian Cox in Hollywood. Well-known authors write blurbs for her books.

            “Joyride” is an ode to Orlean’s devotion to writing. Her intensive research and discipline throughout the writing process are described. Were I still teaching a journalism class, I would make this book a must read.  It is a great example of Orlean’s mastery of narrative nonfiction and a truly fascinating memoir.

            Buy the Book.