Things that Fall from the Sky [Paperback]

Kevin Brockmeier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 2003

Weaving together loss and anxiety with fantastic elements and literary sleight-of-hand, Kevin Brockmeier’s richly imagined Things That Fall from the Sky views the nagging realities of the world through a hopeful lens.

In the deftly told “These Hands,” a man named Lewis recounts his time babysitting a young girl and his inconsolable sense of loss after she is wrenched away. In “Apples,” a boy comes to terms with the complex world of adults, his first pangs of love, and the bizarre death of his Bible coach. “The Jesus Stories” examines a people trying to accelerate the Second Coming by telling the story of Christ in every possible way. And in the O. Henry Award winning “The Ceiling,” a man’s marriage begins to disintegrate after the sky starts slowly descending.

Achingly beautiful and deceptively simple, Things That Fall from the Sky defies gravity as one of the most original story collections seen in recent years.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The stories in Kevin Brockmeier's debut collection require, test, try, exhaust, and--just often enough--reward the reader's patience. In Things That Fall from the Sky, Brockmeier writes in painstaking prose that's long on exposition and short on action. Many of these stories concern children. In "These Hands," a thirtysomething man, possibly with Nabokovian intentions, baby-sits an 18-month-old girl. In the title story, a depressive librarian finds relief, and even guidance, in the company of her small granddaughter. And in "The House at the End of the World," 4-year-old Holly describes her isolated life in a shack in the woods with her father: "This was during the collapse of civilization, and I believed we were the only people in the world." Here Brockmeier's expository style pays off, as he describes in detail father and daughter setting traps, lighting lanterns, and tracking streams. It's a kind of end-of-days Little House in the Big Woods, except, of course, the father is crazy, and civilization has not collapsed. In the end, Holly's mother comes to take her away, and Brockmeier doesn't shy for a moment from Holly's pain as she is carried "from the house and the bed and the world which were mine." At his best, Brockmeier writes with excruciatingly thorough imagination. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Twenty-eight-year-old Brockmeier won inclusion in the 1997 O. Henry Prize anthology for "These Hands," a delicate and risky story about a male nanny who may be unhealthily attached to the young girl in his care. Lewis, the nanny, tells the reader in a voice rich with wit, compassion and longing about his brief time caring for Caroline, a girl who seems ordinary in every way except to him, to whom each of her movements is precious: "Caroline lay on the silver-gray carpet, winking each eye in turn as she scrutinized her thumb." As the first story in this debut collection, it strikes an impressive note, but it also sets a standard only intermittently met in the remaining 10 stories. Brockmeier assembles the collection loosely around the theme of fairy tales, aiming for a sense of wonder and enchantment, though sometimes settling for the familiar and earthbound or drifting into weightless whimsy. The title story features a librarian whose grown children are inattentive and whose supervisor shows little sense of humor. When she encounters the village eccentric among the library stacks, it comes as no surprise that he's destined to rescue her from her prosaic existence. In "The Light Through the Window," a window cleaner swoops across the facade of the huge building where he lives and works, dreaming about his past. Most amusing is the clever "A Day in the Life of Half of Rumpelstiltskin," which brings the betrayed dwarf of Grimm legend (or more accurately, half of him) into the present day. The highlight is a hilarious letter only half-finished from the dwarf's missing half. Brockmeier's hallmark is the fineness of his prose, and in the tender sweep of his best stories he proves himself a formidable young writer. Agent, Kyung Cho.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (July 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375727698
• ISBN-13: 978-0375727696
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heads up!, June 21, 2002

By 

Jeff Topham "jtopham" (Louisville, KY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Things That Fall from the Sky: Stories (Hardcover)

Here are some of the things that fall from the sky in Kevin BrockmeierÕs striking and unusual debut collection of short fiction: an autumn leaf, errant fireworks, a lethal bucket, an impenetrable barrier of blackness, and a characterÕs dead mother. For Brockmeier, these strange rains come to symbolize the moments of pain and grace that intrude themselves upon our lives, falling without warning onto our unsuspecting heads.

These stories move effortlessly from naturalism (a boy shares his first kiss on the same day that his Bible teacher is killed by a falling bucket) to fantasy (a manÕs marriage falls apart as the sky above his house creeps ever lower), and each is distinguished by a richness of theme and character and a formidable stylistic talent. Not every story here works, but those that do are quite impressive. Brockmeier, it seems, is a writer to watch.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interstitial fiction at its best, August 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Things that Fall from the Sky (Paperback)

In this extraordinary collection, Brockemeier effortlessly crosses borders between many different modes of writing -- realism, surrealism, fantasy, mystery, fable, fairy tale -- to create sharply insightful stories that have much to say about modern life and the surreal world we live in. Tender, funny, painful, and deeply moving, I highly, highly recommend this collection to all fans of interstitial fiction.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow., April 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Things That Fall from the Sky: Stories (Hardcover)

Rich and whimsical and beautifully written; imaginative and tender and lovely.