Tag: Katherine Heiny

Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny (short stories)

Kathryn Heiny is a fantastic novelist, and I requested this book thinking it was a new novel. Slightly disappointed when I realized it was a set of short stories instead, I nevertheless kept getting trapped by the prose and the characters in each story until I found I had finished the collection in record time. While a few stories left me unmoved, most kept me interested and provided human behavior insight which is my sucker-point (as in I’m a sucker for narratives that include such). From a day in the life of a driving examiner at the DMV to a woman caring for her elderly father to unintentional affairs to pandemic inspired Migraine flairs, this collection hits a lot of human experience points. Fantastic writing, too. I’m including some of her more humorous lines, but suffice it to say that I spent a lot of time snorting with laughter as I read (apologies for the visual).

Quotes:
“Your elderly father has mistaken his four-thousand-dollar hearing aid for a cashew and eaten it.“ (first line of third story)

“Your shirt is stuck to your back, your underpants feel like a piece of hot, wet, spinach, wrapped around your hips.”

“William had begun to worry that he no longer sparked joy in his wife and that she would give him to Goodwill.” (another story first line)

“Some people say time is like a river, but it’s really much more like an accordion, constantly squeezing you back to high school.”

“She resists the urge to shrug her shoulders, to flick the weight of his gaze off like confetti after a New Year’s Eve party.”

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 18th, 2023

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny (Literary Fiction)

Jane is a second grade school teacher in Boyne City, Michigan. In chapter one she falls in love with Duncan — the town playboy — and spends the rest of the book following an unexpected path through her own life. Each chapter (carefully labeled with the year — thank you!) is a mini-story that captures the essence of Jane’s personal story in that time frame. Story and personal evolution proceed apace with humor, insight, and poignancy as she becomes deeply involved with a set of characters she might not have voluntarily sought out: Jimmy, Duncan’s sweet and intellectually slow colleague; Aggie, Duncan’s bossy ex-wife; and Aggie’s flat out strange husband Gary.

I love Heiny’s writing style — her precise language perfectly captures internal thoughts and external behaviors. Jane possesses a biting interior commentary and the descriptions of second grade classroom life are pointed and hysterical. The characters are real — some times you love them and sometimes they irritate you completely. Good for fans of Anne Lamott.

Some random quotes:

“In fact, she had not only stopped being the maid of honor, she nearly stopped being human and became just a help desk in a giant green dress. She had to tell the caterers to start serving, and direct the florist on where to put the arrangements and the staff which table to designate for gifts.”

“It all reminded Jane that having a baby was not that miraculous. Any two fools could do it.”

“Worst of all were the mood swings. Although, actually, could it be considered a mood swing if it only swung one direction? Maybe it was more like a mood acceleration. Like the needle on a speedometer that whipped straight from ZERO to ANNOYED and stayed there. Because it seemed like the world was in an unkindly conspiracy to irritate Jane.”

“Endless rolling nausea without vomiting, nausea that spun out before Jane like a curving country lane meandering through a hilly green landscape, the end always just out of sight.”

“Jimmy was always there. He lived with them, and sometimes Jane thought that spontaneous adult conversation had fled her life forever.”

“Little insights into the murky liquid that sloshed around in the fishbowl of Gary’s mind.”

“She felt a sort of cellular-level sorrow and wondered if she loved more deeply than other people. Or was everyone else just more mature, more rational? More realistic?”

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 13th, 2021.