The Solace of Leaving Early (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Because he believed in leading a disciplined life, Amos Townsend tried to go to bed at the same time every night, eleven o' clock, or..." (more)
Key Phrases: Grandma Wilkey, Amos Townsend, Plum Street (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A romance evolves in the wake of a domestic shooting in Kimmel's intelligent and compassionate debut novel, which brings two friends of one of the victims together in a small Indiana town. Amos Townsend is the male protagonist, a 40-ish preacher who counseled the late Alice Baker-Maloney as her frayed marriage degenerated into a fatal confrontation with her controlling husband, Jack. Amos remains tormented by his attraction to Alice and his inability to have prevented the tragedy. Meanwhile, bookish Langston Braverman has returned home after dropping out of her Ph.D. program following an affair with an academic colleague and subsequent nervous breakdown. The two clash after Langston's mother, AnnaLee, orders her to abandon her literary projects to care for Alice's two orphaned daughters; Amos accuses Langston of being unfit for the job when both girls continue to exhibit a bizarre variety of compulsive, religiously oriented behaviors. The girls' crisis continues to escalate, leading to a series of melodramatic scenes in which Amos and Langston are forced to confront their own demons. There are some winning moments as the protagonists move toward a romance, although things are hindered somewhat by the sluggish pace in the early going, as Kimmel (A Girl Named Zippy) meanders through scenes detailing smalltown Midwestern life and as she delves into the pasts of the two leads. Still, she proves a wise, compassionate and often very witty storyteller whose affection for her characters is contagious.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

After being dumped by her professor/ boyfriend and walking out on her Ph.D. oral exams, Langston Braverman returns to her seemingly simple Midwest hometown, where she learns that a childhood friend has died. The Kierkegaard-reading Langston is so afflicted with existential malaise that she ignores her own family and cannot bring herself to inquire into the cause of Alice's death. Langston is finally brought out of her isolating stupor when she begins to care for Alice's two disturbed daughters with the unwanted help of the town preacher. Kimmel, also author of the celebrated memoir A Girl Named Zippy, draws remarkable characters out of ordinary, small-town America. The dialog is clever and sleek without degenerating into the facile pacing of a television script. Through masterly interior and exterior dialog, Kimmel devises a heartwarming story about troubled individuals who struggle with their problems while finding solace and a degree of peace in one another. Highly recommended for public libraries.
- Colleen Lougen, Mt. St. Mary Coll., NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 5th edition (May 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400033349
• ISBN-13: 978-1400033348
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #292,363 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really beautiful little book, October 11, 2004

By	S. McKinney (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First of all, I could just hug Haven Kimmel for not falling into the trap that so many of today's authors fall into, which is in thinking that if 50,000 words are good, then 500,000,000 will be EVEN BETTER. It was a great pleasure to read such a tightly woven story and gave me the impression that Kimmel has really WORKED on her craft as a writer -- she has the discipline to keep her writing spare and lean.

The characters were lovely. Okay, I got a bit weary of Amos' constant pedantic mental plodding through books of theological thought that are obscure to anyone who hasn't spent time in a seminary, and there were times when I wished I could yank Langston out of the pages by her wrist, give her a smack in the head and then shove her back into the story, but Kimmel's resolution of the quirks of the two characters was worth these annoyances. At first, I thought Kimmel was just being show-offy of (and boresome about) her own time spent in seminary and graduate school, but as the characters opened up, I perceived there was a reason. Langston's mother was a jewel and the two little girls were haunting.

Considering the subject matter (a brutal murder), this was a surprisingly witty book that made me laugh out loud several times at Kimmel's deft turn of a phrase. The ending was superb.

I loved it. I recommend it highly. Kimmel is a gifted writer.

(P.S. I had those little cream cheese mints at my own wedding and they aren't THAT bad.)

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars true solace, July 5, 2002

By	Say Hey Kid (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Solace of Leaving Early: A Novel (Hardcover)

Forget love. Forget anger. Forget fear. The most powerful human emotion is grief. It's also the most mysterious, and yet the most concrete. Haven Kimmel, following her stellar memoir "A Girl Named Zippy," explores grief from four different experiences via the primary characters of this remarkable debut novel. Like Zippy, it's set in a tiny Indiana town, where Langston Braverman has returned upon abandoning her doctoral studies, only to find her deep self-absorption challenged by her mother, self-doubting minister Amos and two recently orphaned girls gripped by religious ecstasy. As all of them are thrown together by tragedy, each deals with his or her grief in distinctly different ways which Kimmel reveals in incredible depth and nuance as she weaves their increasingly entwined lives. It is not a romance -- though there are certainly romantic elements. It is not a melodrama -- at least not in any contrived way, in that every note of the story rings true to the people and situations. What "Solace" is is a confident and immensely readable work from a young writer with a true gift for language, feeling for her characters and the mysticism of everyday life. With this, Kimmel joins the ranks of today's top writers (Franzen, Chabon) as well such distinctly southern/middle American voices as Ellen Gilchrist and Flannery O'Connor.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your average light summer read, August 4, 2003

By	Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Placed into my hands by a woman at my neighborhood bookstore who said, 'Read this,' what a wonderful discovery this book was. Langston Braverman (and howz THAT for a great name for your character?) returns home (after a grim end to an affair and in the middle of her PhD orals) not for the usual reasons; she wants to get away from it all. But she find herself right in the middle of it all, the biggest 'it' being the death of her childhood friend and the fact that she's asked to help care for her friends deeply disturbed daughters. With great story lines, believable dialog, and revised Midwestern values, we read, compulsively hooked, as these troubled individuals struggle to find solace and peace. Wow, what a terrific book!