Farewell Navigator: Stories [Paperback]

Leni Zumas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2008

In this dazzling premier collection, Leni Zumas shines a bright light into the far corners of a dark, dreamlike America populated by a cast of characters on the brink of survival. With the Gothic style of Flannery O’Connor, the urgent lyricism of Jayne Anne Phillips, and the quirky humor of Sam Lipsyte and George Saunders, Zumas blends a lyrical, poetic voice with remarkably original storytelling. A teenage boy finds his blind mother making a pass at his new best friend; a lonely woman works in a pillow factory by day and at night tends to a menagerie of sick animals; an aspiring witch is disillusioned by her spiritual shortcomings; a girl from a town so small it doesn’t exist on any map runs away with a rock band. The odds stacked against them, these lovingly rendered outsiders find redemption in the unlikeliest of circumstances. Zumas so skillfully intertwines the utterly fantastic with the absolutely believable that the reader has no choice but to follow in fascination and wonder. Even the most surreal moments take on a surprising familiarity, and the bleakest moments are imbued with unexpected hope. To become engrossed in Zumas’s world is a strange and beautiful delight.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Zumas gives socially awkward, mysteriously gifted and self-destructive outcasts spellbinding, unflinching voice in her debut collection. The heroes in this collection are trapped; some are resigned to years of caregiving, many are institutionalized and nearly all haunt the fringes of normalcy (or disregard the normal altogether). Each story begins with a lightning strike into a new consciousness: the first flashes of a romance over the lunch line in a psych ward in Waste No Time if This Method Fails; a teenager in the title story dreaming of abandoning his blind parents; the young woman of The Everything Hater living in sustained dread after her brother's repeated suicide attempts. There are triumphs, too: a patient in treatment for an eating disorder exacts revenge on a bully, and an underage groupie liberates herself from her punk lover's fabricated fairy tale world. Zumas captures halfway-house heartbreak as well as moments of thoughtful, scab-picking solitude. It's a powerful, irresistible collection. (June)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press, Open City Books (May 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890447498
• ISBN-13: 978-1890447496
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #589,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Magical, June 11, 2009

By 

leni1123 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farewell Navigator: Stories (Paperback)

This book is simply magical. From the prose to the characters, everything about these stories is both dark and otherworldly yet realistic and relatable. Leni Zumas captures something universal about the human existence while enchanting readers with her magical way with words. I've had this collection of short stories for over a year, yet it continues to amaze me, and shows me something new everytime I read it. It is definitely on my top ten list of favorite books. What a gift she has.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discerning and violently beautiful prose., August 11, 2008

By 

A Reader (NY, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farewell Navigator: Stories (Paperback)

A terrifically intelligent and wonderfully eccentric book of short stories. They are dark, unforgiving, and strangely hopeful. Sentence by sentence, the prose is extraordinarily crafted, with an ear (especially uncanny for a fiction writer) for the lyrical. Some of these stories take as their impetus certain myths (such as the tale of Bluebeard) yet never in an obvious or trite fashion-- rather, the presence of the myth becomes apparent well into the story, and serves primarily to accent the narrative arc. I'm picky about the fiction I read. I like language that takes risks, and sentences in which every word counts . Think Barthleme. Not an imitation of. No. As original as.