Customer Reviews

The Earth and the Sky: Stories

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A treasury of fifteen intriguing short stories from the accomplished author of the novel "Trutor & the Balloonist".

Each story plumbs the depths of human nature and the underlying emotional currents, yet none of them end quite the way you would imagine.

From Europe to Asia to the Caribbean, North and South America, through language differences, tragedy, loss, miracles, abuse and betrayal, the characters share cross cultural voyages of self discovery, all cleverly captured in clear, easily digestible language.

The stories that stuck in my mind are "Rosa'a Vision", "Life as a Dragon" and "The Nearly Invisible People".

The stories that echoed in my brain are the twin tales "The Advancement of Dawn" and "The Dance of the Falling Comet".

The story that haunts my soul is "Maria Angelica".

Fifteen great stories that can be read with the speed of a bullet train, but that you'd choose to linger over.

Amanda Richards, November 27, 2004.

Most of the fifteen stories in Wesselmann's sterling collection present characters out of place, whether they are immigrants, tourists, or American expatriates. Various stories depict American students skiing in Europe, a Taiwanese immigrant earning the respect of her new in-laws outside of Princeton, the daughter of gypsies negotiating local prejudices in Florence, a Rhode Island woman chasing twisters in Tornado Alley.

There is not a single story here that I didn't enjoy--and nearly all of them are close to perfect--but if I were to pick one that seemed emblematic of the whole (and which continues to resonate for me), I would select "Stone Daughter." Its protagonist, a woman who moves to Japan with her husband to attend to his late father's business, tries to fit in with his traditionalist rural family. She reassures her husband, "I want to be Japanese. Here you have such a spiritual society. What do we have in America?" and she attempts to help first with the household (much to her in-laws' dismay), then with the business--yet he, for his part, wishes they were back in America. They are "two expatriates of different countries."

The author could almost have titled her book "Stranger in a Strange Land," except that, in each tale, she manages to make the strange universal and the stranger recognizable. Far from being forever lost in translation, most of Wesselmann's characters find themselves (or their destinies) in their universally strange surroundings. In the world of these stories, everyone lives on the same earth, under the same sky.

The title of the book, "The Earth and the Sky: Stories," reminds me of either the Orient or Native American folklore. Reading several of the stories I learned much about the Chinese culture, specifically within the setting of Taipei as in "Dance of a Falling Comet". The author writes with crystal clear precision, capturing details of feeling and thought using a unique pallette of different colors. This story even had a sequel which completed the ideas and themes started by the other. The first story is set in Italy, where an American family rents a villa. The family includes two young daughters, Hannah and Jenny. There is a young lady who manages the villa and a wonderful horse named, Nocciola who becomes the hero in this very pleasant story. "Stone Daughter" takes place in Japan. An American woman returns to Japan, which is the ancestral home of her husband. He is the oldest son who must assume responsibilites for running the family pottery business. This intercultural marriage is filled with interesting insights and behaviors expected of the Japanese. Another story is set in the Grand Cayman Islands where snorkeling reveals the risks associated with viewing the wonders beneath the ocean ... The story which is set in Toulouse, France develops some unexpected twists and turns with a very surprise ending ... "Life as a Dragon" reveals a lot about cleverness and using one's intuiton with honor. "Down Under the Lake" is a story about a pre-teen girl whose parents are divorced who goes out boating with her older brother and the serious temptation which she survives. "Core Puncher" is a story about Lillian who chases tornadoes for excitement - she chases them from Oklahoma to Texas trying to capture them on film and video. There is a hidden reason behind her need to challenge nature ... This one brought occasional tears to my eyes as I learned more about Lillian and her life. All of the stories are marvelous, with vivid descriptions of people, places, and events that reveal feelings and values from different perspectives. Not all the stories end the way the reader expects ... The scintillating events about which the author writes, reveal the great depth and understanding she possesses. Sometimes there are competing emotions or values which must be resolved. She captures complex emotions that occur within specific social and cultural contexts. These stories are like delicately chiseled sculptures ... each is unique and must be viewed from different angles to be fully appreciated. It is highly recommended. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

These stories find a way of probing the real way that humans think and act in real life situations. The author has a unique way of telling the story while allowing the reader to deeply identify with the character and understand and feel with them. She has poignant insight into our minds and souls. There is also something almost poetic that periodically happens in the stories, a line here or there that just strikes you. I sincerely enjoyed every moment with these stories.

The Earth and the Sky by Debbie Wesselmann is a collection of gently written short stories all relating to the theme of loss, displacement and assimilation. Wesslemann's character's deal with the difficulty of going from one cultural situation to
another and how languages, customs and conventions can be mired in mental struggles. All of these stories deal with moving out from the familiar and getting into the unknown which I believe is the underlying theme in these stories. The fear of the unknown and the triumphs of making the unknown familiar. In Ingrid, face down the main character's has this intense fear of the ocean and space. She has great difficulty getting into the ocean on a vacation trip. A trip that her and her boyfriend, Max were supposed to take together. But it is because of the Max's unwillingness to move out of her mother house that their relationship has broken down.

In Life as a Dragon, the main character Ming Li who is from China is about to marry her fiancé Warner. Her experiences deal with culture clashes of the east and west how she slowly assimilates and accepts her new family and her role as a bride.

I found the imagery contained in these stories to be quite vivid and colorful. The ocean imagery in Ingrid is very fluid and carries a lot of emotional weight. The narration
of these stories(whether in 1st or 3rd person) are handled with a clean delicacy.

Overall I thought this collection was a fine read and each of these stories can be read in one sitting. Wesselmann is able to take the ends of the earth and fold them into each other.

Debbie Lee Wesselmann presents over a dozen short stories in her first book, "The Earth And The Sky". The book's stories are as varied as the landscapes and location they occur in. From Japan to Italy and the Caribbean to the American mid-west, Wessellman's stories have common themes. From intimacy lost and regained, the sharing of fear and angst and the ultimate understanding of our fellow human beings, the stories produce new situations with sometimes unexpected conclusions.

There is the difficult story of the American wife living with her Japanese husband in Japan. She is caught in an unfamiliar world having to learn new customs while maintaining her own self respect. There is the story of the woman who learns to overcome her fear of water while snorkeling in the Cayman Islands. I found this rather mundane other than the location. The excitement of the storm chaser in the Mid-west hoping for the best photos of disaster learns to understand what it really means to live in tornado-alley. The most intriguing story is that of the two girls who are renting their family's Italian villa to an American family. Although told in English, the girls do not speak English very well. The ensuing language barrier proves both humorous and near tragic. It proves that language is not the barrier we think when it comes down to human emotions. Not too bad for a first collection of shorts.

I read a wonderful compilation of short stories by Debbie Lee Wesselmann titled, "The Earth and the Sky." Her metaphors such as "...Had Ming-li and Warner rushed into marriage the way a rabbit springs from a meadow?" in "Life as A Dragon," and "The Tuscan hills, dappled in bright yellow and orange, rose around us like solid parents" in "The Earth and the Sky," flow from the page like a red ribbon dancing in the breeze. Many of her stories deal with Asian women who are struggling to make it in their traditional, male-dominated countries. This author's descriptions of Japan, Italy, and France paint such vivid pictures of those countries that I felt as if I'd been there. Stories such as "Core Puncher," "Snow Angels," and "The Nearly Invisible People," create the characters intense struggle to find peace among the death of loved ones. Wesselmann is a beautiful artist of fiction and I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to enrich their lives and widen their imagination.

The 15 short stories in this superb collection represent a wide variety of characters and cultures. While the stories take place in mainly rather exotic locations--Taipai, France, Italy, the Grand Cayman, Chili, Montreal, and Japan, the themes are universal and face humans across the globe.

One of the main themes threaded through the collection is loss--the characters struggle with loss of culture, loss of independence, loss of the self, loss of a parent or a child, and the loss of love. Some of the characters experience loss while driven by acculturation, duty and family loyalty

My favourite stories--in order--are: "Ingrid, Face Down," "Core Puncher," and "Snow Angels." And it was not an easy feat--either making the selection or putting them in order. These three stories are unforgettable.

"Ingrid, Face Down" is the story of a schoolteacher who finds herself taking a long weekend getaway alone--and not with her boyfriend--as originally planned. The author creates a languid pace with language as the teacher, Ingrid, gathers the courage to try scuba-diving. Ingrid physically explores the silent beauty of the ocean while simultaneously analyzing her inner, emotional life and the inevitable shortcomings of her romantic relationship with her duty-driven boyfriend.

"Core Puncher" is the story of a grieving parent who spends her holidays chasing tornados in Oklahoma. Family and friends simply don't understand the drive--or the need--Lillian has to face death and then record the event. Lillian meets a fellow traveller on the road, and they share a moment of recognition.

"Snow Angels" takes place in France and concerns a quartet of young students--Kate (the narrator), Matthew, Aaron, and Dave who meet and befriend a fellow American, Daria. Daria finds herself abandoned in a strange country, and she quickly joins the group. However, Daria's presence upsets the existing dynamic, and both Matthew and Dave find her rather annoying. Kate's relationship with Aaron is also spoiled by Daria's presence, but some serious lessons await them all when they leave for a skiing holiday in the Pyrenees.

For many years, I've found that reading short stories is a tried and true method for discovering new authors. Some authors I have discovered through reading short stories ... To this list, I shall now add Debbie Lee Wesselman. As a reader, I am in awe of a talent that can create a perfect, unforgettable tale within the structure and confines of the short story format--displacedhuman

The Earth And The Sky by Debbie Lee Wesselmann is a collection of short stories which has an overall theme. Not all short story collections have a theme that ties stories together, so I found it interesting that The Earth And The Sky does. This overall theme is that even though our cultures may be different, as human beings we all have the same wants, needs and desires etc., so perhaps we are not as different as we thought we are. This theme does not apply to every story in the collection, since not all of the stories take place in other countries and/or with people of other cultures, there are a couple of stories that take place in America with Americans as the main focus, but I found the theme did apply to many of the stories.
Some stories were written in first person, while others were written in third person. The third person narratives kept us close to their protagonists, but I felt even closer to the first person protagonists. I was more so able to crack in to the thoughts of the first person narrators and really understand what they were feeling than I was able to with the protagonists who were told about in third person.
Wesselmann definitely seems familiar with the other countries she writes about (it says in the about the author section at the end of the book that she has traveled the world many times, which came as no surprise to me after reading the book), and her descriptions of other cultures/countries are easy to visualize and seem believable. She especially likes to compare how different Americans are from other cultures. Many of her stories include American characters in a foreign place or vice versa. And in a couple of stories we see the Americanization of people from other cultures. If I hadn't read the about the author section at the end of the book, I still would have guessed the author was American, although there are some stories that do not feature Americans at all, which if I had read those stories on their own and not as part of this collection (for ex. "Rosa's Vision" which takes place in Chile), I might have thought the author was from that country and cultural background, instead of being American.