Eleven downbeat stories, five published previously, from newcomer
Kane: blues variations that form an insistent but eloquent study of
faces of quiet desperation. There are the drinkers: Sarah, first,
in "Evidence of Old Repairs," whose efforts to connect with her
teenaged daughter while on a family holiday in London are
complicated by the memories both have of Sarah's rum-and-Coke
afternoons at home; and then Shelley, in "Refuge," an aging
associate in a prominent Washington law firm, who attends the
firm's weekend retreat days after having sent her teenager away to
live with his dad, no longer able to cope with him, and who binges
her way through the pain. And there are the seekers: The
mathematician in "The Arnold Proof," at 46 close to the twilight of
his career, close to cracking the proof of the notorious Riemann
Hypothesis, but also closer than ever to cracking up when he has an
epiphany in an interstate rest area; and the publicist in "How to
Become a Publicist," a midwestern girl lured by New York
publishing, who quickly tires of the inanity of it all and applies
to grad school. And then there are those for whom objects have
assumed unnatural significance: Lena in "Ideas of Home, but Not the
Thing Itself," a newlywed who covets the furnishings of the
Georgetown house she and her young husband are sitting; and the
young boy in "First Sale," faced with his mother's determination to
get rid of stuff after his father leaves them, but who cannot bear
to part with a bottle of Maryland lake water he had scooped up at
the end of a family vacation. These characters, along with others
equally on edge, give voice to the ceaseless yearnings that-so
Kane's volume suggests-preoccupy us almost from the cradle to the
grave. Lovers of lighthearted fiction, fear to tread here. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Gorgeous, melancholic stories of family relationships--and of
trying to survive the modern world. "In her life, she'd rarely felt
taller than the trees." So observes a character in Jessica Francis
Kane's beautiful and insightful debut stories.Set in the United
States and London, this striking collection introduces us to a
range of complex characters: some anguished in their pursuit of
impractical dreams, others struggling with the painful intimacy of
families. We meet a mathematician who has forsaken everything in
order to prove a theory, a young New York publicist trying to make
ends meet, an older woman author achieving fame late in life. In
each story, Kane combines elegant prose with wit, generosity, and
emotional power to portray characters at odds with the pattern of
their lives, often awkward or embarrassed or desperately impulsive.
Much of what they understand about the people who would love them
remains private, internal. In time, intimacy begins to look a lot
like mere politeness among strangers. The problem, these stories
suggest, is not misunderstanding but understanding too well.Bending
Heaven marks the debut of a stunning new talent.
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