Stealing the Fire
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
This collection of stories by award-winning writer Jane Ciabattari introduces a strong, original voice with a wide-ranging understanding of human nature. In fierce lyrical language, she explores the aftershocks of life changes—the loss of a father, a husband, an unborn child, an all-consuming job—and the illuminations that make hope possible. In the title story, a young writer whose father was dubbed “the psychedelic Rimbaud,” struggles to absorb his death and to find her own voice while resisting the pull of addiction in her own blood. In “A Pilgrimage,” a fifty-year-old widow undertakes a mission of mercy to El Salvador, with tragic repercussions. “Gridlock” is a comic tale of New York City in which a feisty Irish-American actress and her Cuban-born actor husband hit a dreaded cool spot in their marriage—and a rent-controlled apartment becomes the fulcrum for renewed passion. “Once in a Blue Moon” follows Liza, a management consultant on vacation, as she happens upon an old love performing at a Montreal blues festival and faces all she left behind when she turned her back on her rebellious youth. In “Payback Time,” Joshua learns tough lessons at work. “Memorial Day” shows a couple with a troubled son the savage side of nature. In the award-winning “Wintering at Montauk,” Stanley turns thirty and follows a perverse impulse to withdraw into his parents’ summer home in the offseason to ride out a string of failures. Set in the San Francisco Bay Area, El Salvador, New York City, Montreal, and Montauk, the haunting stories in Stealing the Fire throb with the joys and pains of real life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dealing with loss is the common theme that runs through Ciabattari's solid debut collection, a wide-ranging exploration that begins in the title story, as a woman tries to cope with the death of her father, a prominent author and professor. Vowing to find her own voice as a writer, she experiences a sense of renewal in the midst of her grief and desolation. Loss permeates the best story in the collection, "A Pilgrimage," which describes the journey of a middle-aged California widow to El Salvador on a mission of mercy as she tries to help a teenager by bringing the girl's mother to the U.S. Caught up and captured in the civil war, she experiences a brutal loss of innocence, but also a new commitment to life. Post-relationship losses get thoughtful treatment as well, most notably in "Once in a Blue Moon," in which a woman reconnects musically with her ex when she encounters him performing at a Montreal blues concert. Ciabattari is equally sensitive to male protagonists, first in the wild "Payback Time," as a Silicon Valley executive gets hustled and then ousted from his job in a fast-paced, fast-lane deal, and more quietly in "Wintering in Montauk," as a young man approaching his 30th birthday returns home to his parent's house on Long Island to confront a string of failures. Ciabattari displays a deft sense of control throughout, balancing character, dialogue and scene construction with assurance. While the general motif makes some of the tales relatively predictable, she does offer more interesting twists and turns as the collection unfolds. This book makes a strong first step toward earning both an audience and critical praise for Ciabattari.
