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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rambunctious, elbows-flailing prose, March 16, 2005
Though Elizabeth Crane's All This Heavenly Glory is billed as a collection of stories, after just a few, I shifted into novel mode, which was easy to do, seeing as the whole collection is about one character viewed in many snapshots from the age of 6 to 40, Charlotte Anne Byers. Those who who have read Crane before will be familiar with her rambunctious, elbows-flailing prose, in which the dependent clauses become so laden that they at times break free into outlines and lists. The effect of this stylistic departure from standard convention is, miraculously, not at all gimmicky, because a) Crane manages to keep those piled up words from toppling over, and b) it is in keeping with the persona of the character that she has created to inhabit this book. Because All This Heavenly Glory, necessarily, touches upon many trials and tribulations of girlhood and womanhood, it seems likely that it will have the "chick lit" moniker attached to it at some point. So be it. But what this book really is is an unflinching character study of a complicated person. Charlotte Anne is raised on the Upper West Side, comes of age in the 1970s in a family branched by divorce and remarriage, and endures a decade of being lost in her 20's - both geographically and spiritually. She is both foolish and clever, endearing and infuriating, hopelessly falling apart and really good at "having it together." Not all at the same time, of course. Crane tells Byers' story episodically, filled with details and discursions, and though the book threatens to come apart under the pressure of Crane's furiously frantic stylings, she manages to pull together an overarching narrative that is telling and poignant, less - and therefore more meaningful - than the sum of its frenetic parts.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very enlightening and insightful!, January 6, 2006
I enjoyed reading Crane's When the Messenger Is Hot and had looked forward to reading another one of her short-story collections. All this Heavenly Glory is somewhat different from When the Messenger Is Hot. This is a collection of connected stories that center on a female character and what she becomes from being a spunky young girl to being quite a cynical adult. The stories are more vignettes based on the one heroine than anything else, but they make great stand-alone tales of their own. This sort of reminds me of Melissa Banks's The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, only that Crane's style is far more insightful and enlightening than the stuff Banks wrote in her collection. Anyway, my favorite vignettes here are "Howard the Filmmaker," "Notre Monde," "Brooklyn," "Guidelines," and "Football." Even though I agree with the reviewers who consider this book to be "chick-lit," I feel this collection has more depth and spunk than many of the flimsy, superficial stories found in the aforementioned books. I love chick-lit, but there are so many out there that you can no longer find the special ones from the run-of-the-mills. All this Heavenly Glory, however, is definitely one special find and I cannot recommend this book enough. I take away one star because I admit I had expected a collection of stand-alone stories and was somewhat disappointed when I discovered that it was not one. However, the book itself is great.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A unique and memorable collection of short stories, April 27, 2005
Reading the eighteen stories that make up this delightful novel is a little like going through a frenetic friend's box of family photos. The pictures are not in order and each one triggers another trip down memory lane, with many detours and evoking buried emotions. These include tales of her wanderlust that draws her back and forth across the country as she tries to find her place, her failed attempts to "win an Oscar in any category," the fickle and faithful friendships, and her many encounters with men, including the pervert porn producer and the forty-something rock star with "issues."
Author Elizabeth Crane, as she notes about one of her characters, "has a keen sense of observation with regard to human nature." In addition, she has a way with words that keeps the reader engaged as she relates stories in the life of Charlotte Anne Byers from age six to age forty. The child's vignettes begin when the precocious little bundle of energy is eight years old, riding the bus alone in New York City to perform in the children's chorus of the New York Opera. Even at her prepubescent age, Charlotte's mind is occupied by thoughts of love for Dante DiMedici, an older man of fifteen who is still "gender uncertain." Later she develops stage fright that pretty much ends her operatic career, but her misadventures with men go on and on.
The adult Charlotte's stories begin with her writing a lengthy personal ad...about seven pages long. In it she recalls a "brief but compellingly unfortunate prior experience in which one respondent who described himself as a handsome and well-dressed forty-year-old in fact could only be compared to Deputy Dog, if D. Dog had a comb-over and wore a soiled t-shirt with pleated pants and was closer to sixty and not a cartoon."
One of many memorable chapters is where Charlotte outlines the things that she loves about her mom, who has just been diagnosed with cancer. Mom was not your typical cookie baker but "once she reupholstered Charlotte's queen-size sleeper sofa with white fabric even though it's so impractical and she never threw anything away that Charlotte might possibly have wanted or needed." But I think my favorite was the last chapter, which contains every happy-ending cliché you can think of and then some --- a must for us diehard romantics.
At times Crane's prose will seem poignant, at others pointless, depending on your perspective at the moment, and her lengthy, mind-numbing sentences can cause your eyes to glaze over if you don't stay alert. But this series of short stories written in her unique, breathless style is sure to have you nodding and smiling throughout.
--- Reviewed by Maggie Harding, a substance abuse counselor in Phoenix, AZ who wanted to be Brenda Starr before life intervened. She reviews for www.faithfulreader.com and www.womenonwriting.com. To contact Maggie, e-mail Magster2@cox.net.
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