|
With wit, natural artistry, and a keen eye for the absurd, Heidi Jon Schmidt effortlessly weaves a story of strange but all too real family life, set on a tumble-down farm in a small New England town. Sheep wander through the house, an enraged swan menaces the sisters as their own mother entertains a possible lover, and after a brush with disaster, she declares "We faced death. Death couldn't face us." Amidst the chaos, daughter Kate practices the piano, because "Haydn will give order to everything, if only you play him right."
The Rose Thieves is "a graceful journey into the life of a family"
—New York Times
"Beautifully written"
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Tender, bittersweet, evocative, and true."
—Self magazine
Darling?
stories
Darling? is full of shocks, beautiful images and new ways of seeing things. Every page reflects a commonplace reality back at you as bright and startling and exhilarating as a mirror signal from a jungle plane wreck." —The Guardian/ Observer (London)
"This collection has so many shining moments--of humor, of heartbreak, of grace-- that the reader may find himself asking: why aren't more stories this good?" —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Stories like fireflies in the late summer night: exquisite, mysterious, delightful. Heidi Jon Schmidt has the innocent, imagistic eye of a Katherine Mansfield." —Tom Paine, author of Scar Vegas
"Stunning stories, masterfully told. It's tough to write about love and have anything new to say, but Schmidt does just that." —GoodBooksLately.com
The Bride of Catastrophe
The achingly funny, often heartbreaking story of Beatrice Wolfe's quest to escape the gothic eccentricity of her family and find an authentic identity of her own. Leaving the confines of the farm where she grew up, Beatrice falls under the spell of her college literature tutor, an exuberant lesbian who will have a greater influence on her than either of them can imagine. Graduating, set loose on an unsuspecting world, Beatrice tries valiantly to make conventional progress as her family spirals out of control. She is so committed to her new gay identity that she fails to notice she is falling in love with a man....
"Comically beautiful. In polished, nearly Austenian prose, she blurs the line between inanity and tragedy, as the misguided Beatrice tries her hand at love-- of all sorts." —The Village Voice
"Energetic, garrulous, and funny....with characteristic affectionate yet biting wit."
—The Washington Post
|
