TUMBLE HOME: A Novella and Short Stories (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In keeping with its minimalist content, Amy Hempel's latest collection of seven stories and a novella weighs in at a slim 155 pages; what the book lacks in heft, however, it more than makes up for in mood. Hempel, the author of two other short-story collections, is a master of witty understatement. In "The Children's Party," the narrator gives some advice to a father whose children feel that getting a new dog after the old one was killed would be disloyal: "'Tell them this: The need for the new love is faithfulness to the old,'" to which the father replies, "'That's what I used to tell myself when I cheated on my ex-wife.'" In Hempel's stories, nothing much happens, yet everything changes.

The collection's title is taken from the novella, in which a woman committed to a psychiatric institution writes a letter to a famous painter she has only met once. The letter is written over the course of several days, and as the writer chronicles her life among the other patients, she reveals her wounded psyche and her struggle to find home, "the place where nothing can touch you." In one way or another, all of Hempel's characters are looking for home, but there is nothing epic in their voyages of discovery; rather, it is in the little things--the touch of an unshaven cheek, a school of bluefish leaping in the surf, a baby's grave--that Hempel captures a whole world of feeling.

From Booklist

This collection of stories explores characters who define themselves primarily through loss, especially loss revolving around "home." The narrator in "The New Lodger" returns to a familiar town but forgoes reunions and instead writes her friends postcards, to make her feel the "pull of the old home, pulling apart the new." In "The Annex," a new home owner establishes her sense of place in relation to a premature baby's gravesite, across the street, and to its still grieving mother. This and other stories, most only a few pages, are warm-ups for the novella, conceived as a letter by a young woman recovering in a rehabilitation facility, written to an artist she's seen once, briefly. The narrator struggles to define herself in relation to her mother, who has taken her own life, and the letter serves as narrative therapy, tracing the parallel challenges of self-understanding and narrative coherence--"No right place to begin" --and the relief of humor and wordplay--"Art has drawing power" --as well as the subtle perceptual shifts that can mark character transformation. Through these last Hemple deftly angles us into her character's world. Jim O'Laughlin

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First edition. edition (May 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684833751
• ISBN-13: 978-0684833750
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,261,042 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sublime book., October 11, 1999

By A Customer

In a decade of flabby mass-dense but weightless prose, when PCs coax 800 page novels from 3 page brains and there is no fiction that has enough edge to cut soft butter, in a time when short stories are carelessly wrought retreads of rehashed earlier stories, inflicted on readers in the borrowed and depressing syntax of 1950's hackiest fictions, in these bleak days there is one writer, one yet, who still works to make us wince, or laugh out loud, or see the world made new. Look to her tropes, her figurings and how none of her stuff seems mannered, but it's all easy and natural and bright. Buy the book, friend.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't let the shortness and simplicity fool you..., November 5, 2004

By	CoffeeGurl (MA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories (Paperback)

...this is an amazing piece of work. I loved reading Tumble Home. This short-story collection is brief (only 160 pages long) and the stories are deceptively simple. But each story holds profound messages centered on family life and other every day events that may seem insignificant at first glance. My favorite stories are "Sportsman," "The New Lodger," "The Children's Party," and the novella "Tumble Home." Again, the stories are very short, but nevertheless beautiful. Amy Hempel's writing is sparse but possesses such beautiful prose that I just couldn't put this collection down. Hers is a voice that sounds poetic at times. I recommend this book to all short-story lovers.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So short yet long, May 17, 2004

By	Brandon S (Indy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories (Paperback)

Hempel's slim novella 'Tumble Home,' has a hypnotic prose that leaves the reader concentrating on every word. The short stories are so earthy you feel as if you're among family. Minimalism has never been used so effectively with Hempel's description of everyday americana.