Customer Reviews

Leaps of Faith

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved this book! It's a real page-turner. Ms. Kranz has captured the pulse of New York City with an exquisite array of pitch perfect voices running the spectrum of sexual orientation, gender and political position. It is epic in scope and yet very detailed and personal in each of its unique points of view. She has written a novel about intimacy and how we construct our intimate relationships that is political without being preachy. Her insightful glimpses into actor's lives, union organizers, traditional and non-traditional family structures and the web of relationships that keep them together are both painful and heartfelt. The characters have lingered with me long after the last page has been turned. The book reminds me of a fine tapestry, rich in texture and pattern, its story-lines beautifully woven together into a satisfying whole. I highly recommend this book!

Finally! *The* great read of the season has arrived. Rachel Kranz has fashioned a clever comedy of manners set in contemporary New York City that is by turns hilarious, moving and sexy. Thomas Wolfe's _Bonfire of the Vanities_ has nothing on _Leaps of Faith_, a real page-turner that manages to accomplish that rarest of literary feats: a novel that is light enough to keep one pleasantly entertained for more than 500 pages and simultaneously deep enough to make it worth your intellectual while. The novel takes on a whole slew of today's social issues -- gay marriage, police brutality, interracial relationships, class politics -- and makes them utterly human with a diverse cast of characters that you recognize and love from page one. Kranz deftly interweaves multiple plots and character voices so that you end up laughing and crying with Warren as he strives to marry Flip and become a father to his biracial niece Juliet, with Flip as he comes to terms with Warren's love and puts on a show with an experimental theater troupe, and with Rosie who struggles with "female problems" as she organizes a contentious group of workers at fictional Olympia University. This book is a series of overlapping conversations about everything everyone always thinks about but what only the few dare to say or do anything about, and as such it gently but firmly inspires you to get on with changing the world. In these cynical times, it is refreshing to read a book that points the way to new possibilities for living our lives, and does so not through cheap shock value but with a warm and clear-sighted acceptance of the way we live now. Highly recommended!

LEAPS OF FAITH is a very smart book, featuring a large cast of characters and three intertwined stories: a gay couple contemplating marriage, a problematic strike at a large university, and a difficult theatrical performance. It is a remarkable combination of the visionary and the down-to-earth. Kranz has faith that the improbable can happen, but her faith is not naive or sentimental. Ultimately, she is grounded by her love of people: she listens to them carefully, she takes their desires seriously, she understands their doubts and anxieties. Some aspects of the book are very funny, such as the psychic who can see into every life but his own. Others are movingly poignant: the out-of-work black actress who dreams of Dorothy Dandridge. There are tour-de-force moments, as when Kranz creates an entire cop show and has different fans describe it, each from his or her own gender or ethnic perspective. Above all, it is fun to read, beach reading for socially conscious people. You'll be a better person for having read it.

Leaps of Faith is truly captivating. Its plot is rich and moving. Its characters are endearing and vividly alive, especially Warren and Flip. However too much emphasis is placed on the union and the strike. Also, the side stories of Tanya and the lesbian couple in Flip's theatre group seem irrelevant. But the relationship developments between Warren and Flip, between the couple and their respective sister, between the couple and their little girl,Juliet, makes the book shines. The strength in Warren and Flip's relationship culminating to their "marriage" is rare, touching, deeply emotional and beautifully told. I hope Kranz will invest her talents in another novel soon.

One of the most clever books I've ever read. It's funny, captivating, smart. You'll love the characters and want to take it with you everywhere. A real joy!

If you think Sara Jessica Parker expresses "Sex in the City" try reading Leaps of Faith by Rachel Kranz for a millenium feel that conveys characters who have heart, humor, and Chutzpa! A Brooklyn reader

If you are looking for a page turner with heart and soul, please don't hesitate one moment longer...just go out and buy this book. It is an absolutely wonderful read from beginning to end!

The kernel of an excellent story is here, but alas the editor was on vacation when this over-long and self-indulgent book was published.

The story of gay couple, actor Flip and psychic Warren of New York City, is the central arc of the book. Flip is from a working class and essentially socially-conservative Catholic family in Pittsburgh, while Warren is from a wealthy, WASP conservative family outside the city. We first meet them as they reach a crossroads in their relationship and Warren leaves. During a short period of estrangement, Warren is given temporary guardianship of a niece he's never met, an arrangement that upends Warren's circumscribed life and values in ways he never expected (in part because his niece is half Black and he is forced to see the world from a new perspective). In the interim, Flip has been flailing in his career. When the men reconcile, both are at yet another set of crossroads but make a commitment to stay together and eventually Warren proposes marriage to Flip (whose family's response makes him see them in a new way as well).

This set up gives more than enough interest and potential conflict to carry a book. Unfortunately, the author's past as a union organizer impelled her to introduce a union organizer in Flip's sister, Rosie and a signficant and significantly-boring chunk of the book is spent on a union strike and a smaller chunk on her medical problems. In the end, Rosie's story is inessential to the conclusion of the main plot as I found after impatiently skimming through her strike tales to get to the 'real' story.

The author also makes a mistake in introducing multiple points of view from Flip's actor friends with whom he is creating an original play. Their perspectives add nothing to the main story and lengthen the book unnecessarily.

Worst of all, the author's choice to focus on secondary characters robs us of a deeper understanding of the protagonists.

I've read this book a few times because I do find Warren and Flip intriquing and each time, I want to get out my red pen and start making massive excisions. Too bad her editor did not do her the favor of winnowing the wheat from the chaff because there is a great relationship story buried under there.

Set in the vibrant Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen neighborhoods of New York City, Leaps of Faith explores gay and lesbian relationships, struggling actors, racism and union activists. There's something for everyone in this novel, but the author invested so much of her own experiences, I wonder if she has anything left to contribute to subsequent novels.

Warren is a professional psychic, raised in a wealthy family who only partially accepts his gay lifestyle. He is suddenly saddled with raising his sister's French bi-racial 8-year old daughter, Juliette, after his sister admits herself into an asylum in Paris. Although he is totally unprepared for this role, he adapts quickly to it and learns to love Juliette totally. The central theme of the novel is Warren's volatile relationship with Flip, 13 years younger, struggling actor, and the love of his life. After much angst and soul searching Warren and Flip decide to pledge their troth to each other, and many humorous scenes are built around their "wedding" planning.

Flip's sister Rosie is also struggling to come to terms with her love relationship with a much younger man of a different ethnicity. She is also a determined union activist and struggles with some serious health problems. I found the chapters relating to the clerical workers strike at the university to be overdone and boring, and some skillful editing could have made this section of the book more concise and entertaining.

The structure of the book, which was told in multiple voices, allowed you to have insight into the perspective of multiple characters, and was a useful device until the chapters relating to the strike. Moving rapidly from the voice of one character to another character, none of whom were adequately fleshed out, was confusing and tedious.

But, all in all, the book was amusing, quick reading and gave some fascinating insights into New York, the gay life, the theater, and the behind the scenes union organizing. A little less detail in some areas could have shortened it somewhat and made the pace more brisk.

"Leaps of Faith" is a work of love. It is warm, funny, sweet and moving, with elements of suspense and drama. Rachel Kranz tackles major themes of race, sexuality, family and betrayal. She searches her characters with great affection for the best they have to offer and finds an array of human qualities that contribute to a most satisfying reading experience. The book is stylishly written, but in a friendly, down-to-earth way, and at the end of the nearly 600 pages, I only wished for more. I can't wait for Rachel Kranz's next book.