Susan Orlean

Susan Orlean – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Discover the life and work of Susan Orlean, the celebrated American journalist and author behind The Orchid Thief and The Library Book. Learn about her background, writing philosophy, major works, impact, and memorable quotes.

Introduction

Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is an influential American journalist and nonfiction author, best known for immersive narrative works such as The Orchid Thief and The Library Book. For decades she has blended deep reporting with lyrical prose, finding human drama and meaning in unusual or overlooked subjects. Her work has influenced how writers approach nonfiction storytelling — turning facts and investigation into richly textured narratives.

Early Life & Background

Susan Orlean was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in the nearby suburb of Shaker Heights. She is the daughter of h (née Gross) and Arthur Orlean, the latter an attorney and businessman. Her family background is Jewish, with her mother’s side hailing from Hungary and her father’s from Poland.

Orlean graduated from the University of Michigan in 1976, where she studied literature and history with honors. After college she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she began her foray into journalism — initially planning on studying law but finding her calling in writing instead.

Early in her career, she wrote for local publications including Willamette Week. Later she moved to Boston and worked for The Boston Phoenix and contributed to The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

Writing Career & Major Works

The New Yorker & Journalism

In 1987 Orlean first contributed to The New Yorker, and by 1992 she became a staff writer there. Over the years she has also written for other major magazines — Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Outside — bringing her journalistic voice to a wide readership.

Her reporting style is characterized by curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to explore small details. She often takes subject matter that might seem obscure and allows its hidden stories to emerge.

Signature Books & Narrative Works

• The Orchid Thief (1998)
  This book grew out of her New Yorker article “Orchid Fever.” It follows horticulturist John Laroche and the world of rare orchid collectors. The book became well known partly because it was adapted (loosely) into the film Adaptation (2002).

• The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup (2001)
  A collection of essays profiling “extraordinary people” Orlean encountered in her reporting.

• My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere (2004)
  Travel essays and reflections on place and belonging.

• Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend (2011)
  A biography of the dog actor and cultural icon.

• The Floral Ghost (2016)
  Essays blending botany, obsession, and elegance.

• The Library Book (2018)
  A deeply researched work about the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Central Library, and a broader meditation on libraries, memory, and community.

In 2021, she joined the writing team of the HBO series How To with John Wilson.

She has also served as editor for Best American Essays (2005) and Best American Travel Writing (2007).

Themes, Style & Impact

Susan Orlean’s work embodies several hallmark features:

• Curiosity and immersion. She often embeds herself into obscure or niche subcultures — orchid collectors, library staff, animals — and lets details reveal larger truths.

• Blending reporting and lyrical voice. Orlean bridges factual journalism and storytelling, balancing narrative flow with evidence and source work.

• Attention to the ordinary. She has a gift for showing how the seemingly mundane is imbued with human drama and meaning.

• Empathy and human scale. Her subjects are often people (or animals, or places) on the margins, and she treats them with nuance and dignity.

• Deep research. Her nonfiction is grounded in strong reporting, archival work, interviews, and fact-checking, even when the narrative leans poetic.

Orlean’s influence reaches writers of narrative nonfiction, creative journalism, magazine features, and any storyteller who aspires to make fact feel alive.

Personal Life

Susan Orlean’s first marriage was to Peter Sistrom in 1983; they divorced after 16 years. She later married John Gillespie in 2001, and they had a son in 2004.

She is passionate about architecture, especially mid-century modern design. In 2017 she sold a home in Studio City, California, designed by architect Rudolph Schindler.

Orlean is also known for her affection for animals. In her 2021 interview about On Animals, she reflected on how writing about animals ultimately reflects human experience.

Famous Quotes

Here are several notable quotes by Susan Orlean:

• “The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people too many directions to go. … I was starting to believe … that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down … It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility.”

• “You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.”

• “An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.”

• “In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. … Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences … a private library of a life lived.”

• “I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.”

• “When it comes to nonfiction, it’s important to note the very significant difference between the two stages of the work. Stage one is reporting. Stage two is writing.”

• “The library is a gathering pool of narratives … It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.”

These quotes reflect Orlean’s devotion to writing, beauty in the everyday, and love for books and libraries.

Lessons from Susan Orlean

1. Tell the unusual to reveal the universal. Even a niche topic can open into a broader reflection on life.

2. Be patient with curiosity. Good storytelling often comes from slow immersion rather than instant insight.

3. Balance artistry and rigor. Let narrative voice shine, but ground it in solid reporting.

4. Value ordinary lives. The small, everyday stories often carry deepest truths.

5. Persist through doubt. Many writers wrestle with procrastination, uncertainty — creative work requires perseverance.

6. Write with care for memory. Her work reminds us that preserving stories, places, and books matters deeply to human culture.

Conclusion

Susan Orlean stands as a model of narrative journalism: fearless in her curiosity, generous in her attention, and deft in her prose. Through her reporting and books, she has shown that any subject — from orchids to libraries to dogs — can carry emotional weight, cultural significance, and narrative power.