Heavier Than Air (Awp Award Series in Short Fiction) [Hardcover]

Nona Caspers (Author)

Book Description

Series: Awp Award Series in Short Fiction | Publication Date: November 30, 2006

Winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction The stories in this first collection deliver the reader into a world in which men, women, and children are on the cusp of some deeper consciousness. The writing gives lie to orderly images of Midwesterners and instead evokes with unnerving clarity an interior landscape that is primitive and quietly chaotic. This is life in the balance-"whole worlds at the moment of rupture." The children and adolescent characters search for a moral compass or center, while the adults tangle with their own desires. And yet in these unprotected places people thrive in unexpected ways. Published in association with the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Set mostly in rural Minnesota, this debut collection's stories are aching, spare studies of survival and desire. Many of the characters are exhausted by farm life's relentless labor. In "Mr. Hellerman's Vacation," a farmer, recovering in the hospital after a breakdown, recounts his "numbers"--42 cows, 25 chickens, 4 fields, 2 sheds, 1 barn, 6 children, 1 wife--and wonders if "the weight of living is unreasonable." Characters speak with astonishing pragmatism: "Stop being so damn self-centered. Shit or get off the pot," says one woman to a girl in a coma in "Vegetative States." Several of the central characters are girls growing up in the 1960s and '70s who struggle with secret longings for other girls, and their passionate awakenings are an undercurrent to the adults' foggy fatigue. In several stories, the simplest acts--even just noticing one's breath--become wondrous moments that push characters past anguish to reclaim their "bright, insistent, blooming" lives. Darkly funny, compassionate, and unsentimental, these quiet stories offer memorable, rarely seen views of midwestern life. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Throughout, Caspers's people--it's difficult to consider some of them mere characters--question the decisions they've made or the ones they refuse to make. There's nothing flashy about Caspers's prose; like the beauty of the prairie itself, its attraction lies in the details seen up close." -- New York Times Book Review, 2/18/2007

"Recommended. All readers; all levels." -- CHOICE, June 2007

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Pr; 1ST edition (November 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558495568
• ISBN-13: 978-1558495562
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,884,902 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Finest Collections of Unique Short Stories from a Master Writer, June 22, 2008

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Heavier Than Air (Paperback)

Reading Nona Caspers is more than simply exploring the world of one writer's view of the world from the vantage of raw countryside of Minnesota. Reading Nona Caspers is a discovery of a writer with particularly well-honed gifts of creating unforgettable characters who become etched on our minds in the same way the great American writers of the past (and present) have entered our perception of what this country is all about. Caspers writes with a fluid style that wastes no words but describes nature and those animals that fly, crawl and walk this strange territory of rural Minnesota - and the rest of this country - in both harmony and dissonance. She manages to enter realms of thought and situations other writers avoid, and from these peculiar places she creates characters both strange and sad, some who border on decisions edging on ostracism and some who have already entered a plane misunderstood by friends and family.

The lead story, 'Country Girls', is one of the more realistic examinations of a young girl's discovery of same sex love with all the peripheral highs and lows that confrontation presents. In 'Wide Like An Eagle's Wings' we meet a young girl obsessed with the JFK campaign for presidency while coping with the a deeply moving, succinct account of a personal tragedy of death. Characters such as the sad Mr. Hellerman who is hospitalized as one unable to cope with the dwindling losses of his family land inheritance and hopeless future of his farm mix with other children and stunted adults who face changes in their lives that seem to force them into precarious places.

Not a book of sad or dreary tales, this, but one that is unafraid to make us think about the weightier subjects of life while entertaining us with some equally finely tuned comedy. Nona Caspers is a brilliant writer who has found the fabric of American fiction that she drapes and sculpts and molds as well as any of her fine colleagues whose names are household words. Reading HEAVIER THAN AIR is a tasty prelude to what is most assuredly going to be a fine career for a gifted writer. Very Highly Recommended! Grady Harp, June 08

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars read this collection!, December 6, 2007

By 

Elaine S. Buckholtz "Edmond Barres" (SF CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Heavier Than Air (Awp Award Series in Short Fiction) (Hardcover)

Read this collection! These stories rich and deeply satisfying and moving--I read straight through and then read some of the stories again (Country Girls, The Fifth Season, Wide Like an Eagle's Wings). This book is for everyone who loves stories and great characters!

We rarely experience rural people with such complexity and compassion--a farmer, Mr. Lawrence Hellerman--you'll LOVE him and the way he looks at the world as he's trying to recover from a breakdown in a hospital. And the girl who collects cow bones and falls in love with a farm girl, and the woman who invites her mother to visit her in San Francisco after a break up with her girlfriend and then loses the mother in the park. You will love these people and you will witness the generosity of great writing. The San Francisco Chronicle said the stories rev up Willa Cather's lesbian undertones with Denis Jonson's (Jesus Son) deadpan plains rowdiness" -- and that the artistry rewards rereading: "simplicity this precise takes time, talent and considerable cultivation." And it was on the Editor's Choice list (underneath the Bestsellers Feb. 25 2007) in the New York Times Book Review! BUY THE BOOK OR GO TO THE LIBRARY-- BUT READ IT.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book!, January 2, 2007

By 

S. Kaplan (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Heavier Than Air (Awp Award Series in Short Fiction) (Hardcover)

Nona Caspers' writing is full and lush and ethereal. The characters come alive and yet simultaneously exist in some sort of magical world. Each story is so full of feeling and emotion and beauty. I only put this book down to make it last longer. Loved it.