Welcome to
3rd & Orange
by
Joshua Peralta
"Some large talent packed into this small book."
—Mary Roach, NY Times Bestselling Author of Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Gulp, Grunt
“3rd & Orange is a portrait of a time and place, caught in arresting detail. It’s also a portrait of a time and place in the author’s life, a moment that many of us have experienced—poised between the before and after of the onset of adulthood, between potential and realization. My heart ached and sang simultaneously reliving these years.”
—Mike Guardabascio
Co-founder of The562.org
Somewhere windows are raised and doors propped open for company and cold drinks that glimmer on a balcony strung with lights
—from ”Elsewhere”, 3rd & Orange
In 2003, a young man arrives in Long Beach searching for independence and his voice as a writer. In the midst of college, a quixotic letter-writing campaign to city parking enforcement, and concocting great literary odes to the American grocery store worker, he stumbles into a blissful but brief relationship.
But at at time in life when nothing lasts long, the smallest of details--a beer with a troubled friend, afternoon light on a freckled face, mysterious notes on the back of receipt paper--can lead to the longest-lasting impressions.
3rd & Orange, told first in poetry then in prose, is a work of nostalgic force full of clear but painfully belated insights. Readers weave with the author down alleys, through new apartments, toward loss that slowly begins to feel like growth, all the while haunted by the lingering presence of someone who has come into his life just as fast as she is destined to go out.
By the time the late-morning sun finally burns away the last of this fog, I’ll be a half-pot of coffee in, warming tortillas on an open flame and scrambling eggs to the familiar voices of weekend public radio
—from “3rd & Orange”, 3rd & Orange
Below the bluff, people I never saw raked block-letter messages in the sand: JESUS IS LOVE—HAVE YOU CALLED YOUR MOM TODAY?—ALL WILL BE OKAY—MARRY ME MARY?—DON’T JUMP. Their messages were large and cheerful. Who were these thoughtful people? Were they sincere?
—from “afterward”, 3rd & Orange
“Joshua Peralta’s collection 3rd & Orange perfectly captures the effervescent eye of a young man exquisitely attuned to each cloud and to every shared cup of coffee in his California cityscape. His work embodies those charmed moments in a lifetime when we find ourselves so easily able to say: ‘Yes, I belong here, this matters.’”
—Susan Hansell
Founding Editor of SpotLit
And with a laugh as bright as a ring of keys tossed into the air, you drifted back to the charm of an old pickup rusting in tall grass.
—from “The First Days”, 3rd & Orange
For that brisk afternoon the peninsula was ours
and we slipped under the fence to walk those desert blocks of broken street alone
—from ”Sunken City”, 3rd & Orange
As I carved a poem into the wet cement, a cop drove up and asked what I was doing. I told him: I was carving a poem into wet cement. He informed me that carving wet cement was illegal, that I was defacing public property.
I didn’t know where to begin my defense… How could I explain what
drove me to make these silly marks?
—from “afterward”, 3rd & Orange
I wore that ring every day. My finger felt funny without it. Whenever I took it off, it went into a tiny box on my shelf. Sometimes a day might pass before I noticed I wasn’t wearing it, and I would panic thinking I’d lost it. But it always turned up—in its tiny box, caught in my bedsheets, or left in the pocket of a pair of jeans I’d tossed into the hamper. But until I found it again my mind was never quite right.
—from “afterward”, 3rd & Orange
“3rd & Orange is finely bruised nostalgia that is excellent
for the soul. Peralta’s words will make the world fade away
for an afternoon. It is a touching, truthful book.”
—Steven T. Bramble
Disposable Thought
I wandered back over the path that had led me here—to the park on this hilltop, to this small town in this strange country. The last few months seemed an improbable span of time for so much change. I knew most of that change—the change of scenery, the adjustment of language and culture, the shift in routine, the loosening of worry and self-doubt—was only temporary. But what wasn’t?
—from “afterward”, 3rd & Orange
(Click above to watch “Traveling Light”. Stay for “La Paloma Querida”.)
The boy beams, caught up in the moment’s movement. He is not so old yet he can’t still dream of riding off into the sunset.
—from “Lone Ranger”, 3rd & Orange
A quiver ran through me as if I’d drunk too much, although I’d drunk nothing for days. Suddenly I felt like singing.
—from “Surface Tension”, 3rd & Orange
