An Orthinologist's Guide to Life is a short story collection that deals with broken relationships, especially those of women who have been rejected, although there are a few exceptions. It's about the fragility of relationships, but it also powerfully illustrated the beauty that can be found there. Pain and heartbreak are necessary elements of life, and these stories paint pictures of people who have dealt and are still dealing with these as a result of some relationship, giving examples of different types of reactions: how to move on, and sometimes how not to move on. Some stories have happy endings, while many do not. In all, it's a collection that mostly explores questions of relationships without providing a lot of answers, but the answers it attempts to some questions are ambiguous yet profoundly beautiful.
Many of the relationships it deals with are between lovers or spouses who have fallen out of love. "The Rightness of Things" concerns a single mother who, in the space of a couple of days, has a fling with a flighty and deceptive friend of a friend while also briefly reuniting with her ex-husband in a secret afternoon of bliss. Both of these short relationships fracture, and Rachel is left pregnant and unsure of the baby's parentage. She goes to an abortion clinic, where she is shamed for her decision to end her baby's life. In "After Zane," Beth has been abandoned by her husband, who has gotten back together with his ex-girlfriend despite Beth's pregnancy. In this story, Beth is shown as becoming empowered, choosing to hold Zane's attempts to reunite with her at bay, demonstrating that she's not dependent on him. "Lost Parts" tells the story of a woman who accidentally causes her boyfriend's death in a car crash. They weren't getting along at that point in their relationship, and this story illustrates the truth that you should value relationships while you still have them, as they could end at any moment, cut off forever by death.
Familial bonds are also relationships of great importance in this collection. "Joelle's Mother" is the story of three Mexican girls who want to be friends with their half-sister, Joelle, an elitist Italian girl with disdain for their lifestyle. The story demonstrates the deceptiveness of appearances and the difficulty of loving family members who are nearly unlovable. "Escapes" deals with the relationship between Caryn and her niece Jennifer, the latter of whom is rebellious and possibly suicidal. This story ends in positive reconciliation and the formation of strong bonds, as does "Dropping Bombs," a story about unconditional love and acceptance from a mother to her son. These stories are a wonderful break from the general trend of ambiguously unhappy endings that characterize the rest of the collection.
Extramarital affairs are disconcertingly common in this set of stories: out of the eleven, nine of them include characters who either are having or have had sexual partnerships with people other than their spouses. It's also concerning that there is very little guilt from the conscience; the major concern of these people is to keep the affair from their spouses or from others who they wouldn't want to be privy to the information. This lack of guilt, however, is not to say that the author doesn't demonstrate the negative side to extramarital affairs: these relationships almost always break down and end in heartbreak.
In all, this award-winning collection of stories by bestselling author Anne Hood celebrates the beauty of relationships while offering a cautious word of warning about entering into the wrong ones and abusing the ones you're already in.
