All Fall Down

Fiction. "Mary Caponegro is one of the most imaginative, daring, serious and playful writers alive. ALL FALL DOWN is her best book yet"--Jonathan Safran Foer. In two novellas and four shorter tales of love and healing gone awry, we meet caregivers and lovers, muses and skydivers, mothers and minors--all headed toward "ninety mile-an-hour psychic crashes euphemistically referred to as epiphanies." As William Gass says, "The music of Mary Caponegro's stories is to the mouth what wine is." And through exuberant lyricism, remarkable characterization, and settings as elaborately detailed as any in Hollywood, these dramas of failure, resilience, and transformation linger long after the wine is gone.

"In her latest collection, experimental fiction writer Caponegro (The Complexities of Intimacy) continues to push linguistic complexity and surreal elements through six stories about relationships under strain. Opener 'Last Resort Retreat' portrays a married couple's last attempt at reconciliation, with a beautiful fabulist ending; the more straightforward 'Ashes Ashes We All Fall Down' centers on a man balancing the needs of his dying mother and pregnant wife. In the long centerpiece, 'Ill-Timed,' a seemingly psychosomatic illness puts a young lesbian couple to the test, and the closing novella, 'The Translator,' depicts a heady linguist tutoring a younger woman in Italian and the art of romance. 'Junior Achievement' has a bizarre setup involving a young group of orphaned children training to become surgeons, but Caponegro's outré style is better grounded in reality than it once was. At their best, her relationships are depicted with sensitivity, nuance, a resonant sense of frustration, and eerie loneliness. Too often, though, overwrought or unconvincing dialog spoils the narrative. Fans may appreciate the progress Caponegro exhibits, but may also find it lacks the punch of her earlier work." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Enthralling stories of desire and dissolution from "one of our great national literary treasures." (George Saunders)

Mary Caponegro's story collections include The Star Caf and The Complexities of Intimacy. Her stories have been anthologized in The Anchor Book of New American Fiction, The Italian American Reader, and Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana. Born in Brooklyn, she has lived in Italy and now resides in the Hudson Valley where she teaches at Bard College.