Small Acts of Sex and Electricity [Paperback]

Lise Haines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2005

Beauty and privilege, a charming, handsome husband and two promising young daughters, money, a beach house on the Pacific—Jane has everything that Mattie thinks she wants. But Jane always works to damage what she’s given. Mattie knows that better than anyone.

But even she is caught off-guard when Jane leaves her whole life behind one broken morning before dawn. And it will take Mattie awhile to see that, by driving away, Jane has forced open the questions that have always hung in the air between them—the ones that are hardest to answer—questions about desire and envy and integrity. These are the issues of the heart that reveal themselves, not through the bold and dramatic gestures of a woman like Jane, but in even the briefest moments and the smallest of acts.

With the same rich language and keen, compassionate eye that earned acclaim for her first novel, Lise Haines delves here into the forces that memory and touch raise in our lives and our most private hungers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A lyrical, earnest second novel from Haines (after In My Sister's Country) portrays two women whose love for the same man challenges their lifelong friendship. Set at a Southern California beach house, the action erupts when Jane, having inherited the house from her recently deceased grandmother Franny, decides to leave her husband, Mike, and two daughters in the care of her best friend from childhood, Mattie, now a fine-arts appraiser in Chicago. The women attended the same Boston university, where Mattie first fell for Mike, before the more glamorous and determined Jane swept him away and married him. Presently in their mid-30s, the women essentially trade places over the course of several weeks, as Jane takes off to pick up men and have adventures, leaving Mattie to make sense of Franny's extensive estate of artworks, assuage the fears of Jane and Mike's two young daughters and fall in love with Mike all over again. Jane's self-absorption is beyond the pale, and Mattie's skittish neediness is touching, in this spacey, sexy summer read. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Thirtysomething Chicago art appraiser Mattie is back in Santa Barbara, where she met Jane when they were girls, to help sort through the many objets d'artin the old beach house, sold now that Jane's grandmother is dead. One dawning, Jane drives off in the 40-year-old Jaguar, leaving her uninformed husband and daughters to Mattie, who, secretly in love with Mike for years, never saw this coming despite a self-proclaimed gift for premonition. Jane calls the next day to blithely say the Jag needs towing, and she'll be visiting "a very large Paul Bunyan monument I want to see." Though or because Mattie possesses the "particular deficit of emotion to move freely through other people's lives" that is so necessary in her profession, in mere hours Mattie and Mike are making love in the bed he'd shared with Jane. Haines skillfully uses flashbacks and rapid-fire dialogue to make and keep things credible as Mattie takes over Jane's life in this oddly compelling tale of loss . . and losing detachment. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 245 pages
• Publisher: Unbridled Books (September 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932961437
• ISBN-13: 978-1932961430
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,943,854 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars strange but entreating relationship drama, August 23, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Small Acts of Sex and Electricity (Hardcover)

Mid thirties Jane and Mattie have been best friends since childhood, but during college they competed for the affection of Michael with the former easily winning the prize and marrying him. Jane and Michael have two daughters, teenage Livvy and preadolescent Mona. To Mattie's envious eye Jane has everything with her California family while she remains single in the Midwest.

When Jane inherits a house and a Jaguar from her recently deceased grandmother Franny, she decides to take the car and leave her family behind to seek glamour and men not spouses and children. She assigns her visiting pal Mattie to inform Mike that she left him and their kids. Mattie, who came to appraise Franny's art collection, becomes surrogate mother and wife in Chicago while Jane seeks adventuress men.

SMALL ACTS OF SEX AND ELECTRICITY is a strange but entreating relationship drama starring two women, me-me Jane and envious Mattie. They sort of switch places as Mattie, feeling as if she is IN MY SISTER'S COUNTRY, gets a chance to see what could have been if Mike chose her and Jane seizes the opportunity to find out what should have been if she stayed carefree and single. Fans of odd but perceptive family dramas will appreciate Lisa Haines' unusual character driven tale.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Road Not Taken Beckons Once Again, September 28, 2006

By 

Karen K. Lewis (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Small Acts of Sex and Electricity (Hardcover)

Mattie, the 30-something narrator of Small Acts, returns to her childhood environs of Santa Barbara, where she's tempted to switch places with her once-best friend Jane. Jane seems to have it all: perfect husband, two daughters, beach house, material luxury.

This novel explores the solitudes we build for ourselves even within the electricity of a sizzling love affair. The storyteller reveals a present inner world tangled with flashback, using cinematic bursts of exquisite prose.

Small Acts contains many scenes to savor like an assortment of epicurean chocolates: some unexpectedly spiced, others melt-in-the-mouth--an alluring variety of secrets between layers.

If you have ever wondered about the road not taken, and found yourself at that crossroads, again...

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beguiling journey set in California, November 21, 2006

By 

carrie nakamura - See all my reviews

This review is from: Small Acts of Sex and Electricity (Hardcover)

I loved this book. As a reader I loved the flow of the story and the many precise, surprising details. Vivid images like the descriptions of the little girl Mona spinning in a circle, and Franny's wonderful collection of shoes kept me reading. But as a therapist I loved how this book captured the messy, uneven, disturbing experiences of life. The children's experience of loss when their mother Jane takes off echoes the narrator Mattie's experience of loss when her neglectful parents leave Mattie to fend for herself as a kid. There are lots of details that resonate like this. Also the book is set in California--one of my favorite places. I highly recommend.