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This title in other formats:Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Storiesby Joan Silber
Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)"Like a gymnast off a springboard, Joan Silber begins this, and many other flawlessly pitched paragraphs in her recent story collection, with a punch — a short, simple sentence that establishes a particular. She sticks her landing, too (having traveled some distance in the meantime), with another demonstration of muscle: two final sentences, as arresting in their slow pace and awkward construction as the epiphany they describe." Christina Schwarz, the Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Supple and precise, these stories cover lifetimes, much in the manner of Alice Munro and William Trevor. Set in France, Italy, New York, and China, in the past and present, they are about longings — about how sex and religion become parallel forms of dedication and comfort.
Though the stories stand alone, a minor element in one becomes major in the next. In "My Shape," a woman is taunted by her dance coach, who later suffers his own heartache. A Venetian poet of the 1500s, another storyteller, is introduced to a modern traveler reading Rilke. His story precedes a mesmerizing narrative of missionaries in China. In the final story, Giles, born to a priesthood family, leans toward Buddhism after a grievous loss, and in time falls in love with the dancer of the first story. So deft and subtle is Joan Silber with these various perspectives that we come full circle surprised and enchanted by her myriad worlds. Review:"Big ideas come in lovely small packages in this collection by Silber (Lucky Us, etc.). Six elegantly connected stories explore, through first-person narratives, the conflicts and commonalities of love, faith and sex. A minor character in the first story becomes the narrator in the second, and so on, with each story building on its predecessor until they come full circle. Alice, a flighty American would-be dancer, struggles with her body and the difficult men in her life in 'My Shape'; Duncan, an embittered gay dancer (and one-time teacher of Alice) describes embarrassment, heartbreak and the comforts of renunciation in 'The High Road.' In 'Gaspara Stampa,' the titular 16th-century Italian poet narrates her torturous love affairs and the art she makes of them; in 'Ashes of Love,' an ex-hippie and world traveler, whose capricious wife left him to raise their troubled son, later tries to balance his attentions between the boy and his new, younger lover. In the title story, a missionary's wife in turn-of-the-century China tells of learning to live in a foreign world and faces death during the Boxer Rebellion. Each of Silber's narrators reflects on his or her shifting fortunes with the calm wisdom of hindsight, without diminishing the power of immediate experience. Silber uses the device of interwoven narratives beautifully; these lengthy stories can stand alone, but the subtle connections and emotional resonances help create a satisfying structural unity. Silber's wise, compassionate chronicles of longing, devotion and the search for comfort, both spiritual and physical, will move readers to contemplation and delight. Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"[A] standout second collection from Silber....Silber travels the globe and the centuries with ease. If more collections were like this one, readers would gladly abandon the novel." Kirkus Reviews Review:"[S]o subtle and delicate in its construction that the connections seem to arise more from fortunate happenstance than deliberate design....Wonderfully evocative of time and place, this is a collection to be read and savored by all." Danise Hoover, Booklist Review:"Silber uses the ingenious approach of bringing one character, object, or thought forward into the next story to create a ring of narratives that have no real beginning or end....Recommended." Library Journal Review:"Joan Silber is a wonderful storyteller. She always writes with exemplary brilliance and perfectly measured passion." Howard Norman, author of The Bird Artist and The Haunting of L. Review:"I know no one else who writes as Joan Silber does, with such an immediate contemporary voice, about our secret yearnings for a spiritual life." Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture Review:"Here Joan Silber renders the thirsts and devotions of six lives with clarifying exactitude." Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collector Review:"Individually, each piece is an intimate marvel; cumulatively, they add up to a marvelous book." Peter Ho Davies, author of Equal Love and The Ugliest House in the World Review:"Joan Silber writes with wisdom, humor, grace, and wry intelligence. Her characters bear welcome news of how we will survive." Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever Synopsis:Supple and precise, these stories cover lifetimes, much in the manner of Alice Munro and William Trevor. Set in France, Italy, New York, and China, in the past and present, they are about longings — about how sex and religion become parallel forms of dedication and comfort. About the AuthorJoan Silber teaches at Sarah Lawrence and Warren Wilson Colleges, and lives in New York City. Her first novel, Lucky Us, received the PEN/Hemingway Award. Table of ContentsMy Shape 13 The High Road 35 Gaspara Stampa 65 Ashes of Love 97 Ideas of Heaven 143 The Same Ground 200 What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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