From the patchwork of communication that unfolds between mother and daughter, Walbert creates a narrative that is both fractured and lyrical. The stories are linked not only by characters but also by the repetition of certain haunting and idiosyncratic images-Marion's yellow nightgown, "l'heure bleue"-that rise mysterious as talismans.
Rebecca continues her family legacy of wandering, traveling farther and farther afield. But hers is a world viewed with a slightly off kilter eye, one that invokes Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Mohammed's faithful followers at Topkapi Palace, as well as the landscapes of Italy and Jamaica, Istanbul and Paris. Ironically, if Marion had no free will, Rebecca has an excess. This mother and daughter, each uniquely of her own generation, remain locked, firmly, in longing.
Where She Went is an epic for our times-an Odyssey that takes home on the road.
Kate Walbert was born in New York City and raised in Delaware, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Japan. She has degrees from Northwestern University and New York University. Her fiction and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The Paris Review, DoubleTake, Fiction, The Antioch Review, Ms., and The New York Times. Walbert also writes for the theater, and her play, Year of the Woman, has been produced at the Yale School of Drama and at Villanova University. She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts as well as fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo. She currently lives in New York City and Connecticut, where she teaches writing at Yale University.
"Lyric
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And Rebecca does, in a sense. The stories in the book's latter half revolve around a series of postcards, highly fictionalized snapshots of her travels that make it seem she's living out her mother's dream. Much like her mother, however, Rebecca voyages far and wide but gets nowhere. These are subtle, understated stories, domestic dioramas couched in luminous prose. Of the book's two halves, it's Marion's stories that are the more compelling, combining vivid evocations of place and time with a firm sense of character. Rebecca's stories feel less grounded--which is, presumably, the point. Still, they make for occasionally disorienting reading, with long stretches of stunning imagery in seeming free fall. But it's hard not to find yourself beguiled by Kate Walbert's prose, with its richly textured surfaces and sinuous rhythms. As a debut collection, Where She Went promises great things for where she will go.
From a patchwork of communication that unfolds between Marion and Rebecca, Walbert creates a narrative that is both fractured and lyrical. Where She Went is an epic for our times -- an Odyssey that takes home on the road.
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Book Description Quarter Cloth Over Boards. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. Unused pristine first edition bound in grey cloth backstrap over blue boards with silver title on spine and embossed endpapers. Dust jacket is unclipped, protected in removable mylar, and also pristine. Author's first book contains linked stories examining the contemporary problems of families without geographic roots. The first half of the book chronicles the life of Marion Clark, an itinerant company wife, and the following stories introduce her adult daughter. 197 pages. Seller Inventory # 2080140894
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: NEW CONDITION. Dust Jacket Condition: NEW DUST JACKET. First Edition, First Printing. //NO REMAINDER MARK//NO PREVIOUS OWNER MARKS OF ANY KIND (no names or inscriptions, no bookplate, no underlining, etc) // NOT PRICECLIPPED//NEW MYLAR COVER//. Seller Inventory # 0027941
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks514417