"A deep, slow boiling jubilation in the moment-to-moment, line-by-line fact of taking breath." - Katherine Dunn
This collection offers a pyrotechnic array of adventurous language and dashing variations in structure combined with absolute lucidity. The fireworks serve to illuminate rather than obscuring these finely tuned stories. These are human tales of vigorously individual characters living with intensity. Discombobulation plays a roll, but never ennui. The author’s ear for revealing dialogue and double-edged humor ground these stories in a reality worth enduring. The characters connect despite suspicion and betrayal, beyond blood, circumstance or embarrassment at their own ridiculous humanity. Each piece is powered by a deep, slow boiling jubilation in the moment-to-moment, line-by-line fact of taking breath.
"Tenaciously scaled
and sculpted
language. " - Michael Martone
If Jane Austin had written short stories, they would have read much like the restlessly domestic, marvelously mannered ones found in Jessica Hollander’s debut collection, In These Times the Home Is a Tired Place. Hollander’s fictions are hyper-real, saturated with telling timely detail, delivered by attuned and tenaciously scaled and sculpted language. One is up to one’s Empire neck in sense and sensibility and pride and prejudice and and and and and so much more.
"Magnificent collisions
between conventional notions of
normality and the irreducible
strangeness of life..." - Wendy Rawlings
Jessica Hollander's debut collection makes heartbreaking comedy out of the vagaries of life in contemporary America. Her deft and inventive storytelling re-imagines relationships between romantic partners, parents and children, teachers and students, and, perhaps most heartbreaking of all, what makes us happy and what will destroy us. From a high school teacher who finds herself oddly drawn to a female student, to a grandmother who sends frequent postcards warning her family of her imminent death, Hollander orchestrates magnificent collisions between conventional notions of normality and the irreducible strangeness of life as it's actually lived in the 21st century.
"These incredible stories are
razor-sharp with the
possibility of disaster." - Kevin Wilson
Like the description of one of her characters, Jessica Hollander’s senses are “heightened to danger.” These incredible stories are razor-sharp with the possibility of disaster, and Hollander is doing something special in transforming domestic spaces into something anxious and unsettling. Simply put, Hollander understands the weirdness of family, of relationships, and she has the language to make it exciting and new.
"These stories...are as funny and
fierce and charming and startling in their
wisdom as life is tragic... - Kellie Wells
In These Times the Home is a Tired Place is a communiqué to all zygotes with ambitions to please think about what they’re about to do. Be careful, these stories warn, the world is going to expect you to wear shoes and know about fish forks. And understand that if you say yes to being born, if you agree to being a member of a family, you will one day be plagued by these questions: What is my fault? For which tragedies am I responsible? If you ask Jessica Hollander, she’ll tell you straight: all of it. Life is one unwitting infraction after another. These stories, about, among other things, the endearing apocalypse of childbearing and -rearing, are as funny and fierce and charming and startling in their wisdom as life is tragic, which is to say at least you’ll have a good manual for living once you get here. So, zygote, are you up to it?
The Rumpus Review (Michael Broida):
“In These Times the Home Is a Tired Place has the potential to bring broader attention to a small market press… Hollander’s evocative imagery does a marvelous job of capturing the sort of existential ennui that many young millennials have faced since the start of The Great Recession… Hollander’s characters wander into the paralysis and anguish of an entire generation.”
Bustle (Caitlin Van Horn)
“In These Times the Home Is a Tired Place is a sneak-attack on the conventions of domestic dramas. As Hollander’s stories unfold, the rapids undermining peaceful domestic life become apparent, and sweep readers along in their current for a read that has a much wider scope than just suburban homes.”
Books, Personally (Jennifer M. Kaufman)
“The stories in In These Times the Home is a Tired Place brim with tension and little moments of surprise, and I found them exciting to read. The author doesn't shy away from gritty subjects or dark emotions - yet her stories also offer unexpected and touching moments of hope…Recommended for fans of literary short fiction of the more daring sort - Hollander's stories would be nicely at home on the bookshelf alongside collections by Caitlin Horrocks, Holly Goddard Jones, Danielle Evans, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Bonnie Jo Campbell and others.”
Booklist (Joanne Wilkinson)
“Powered by elliptical dialogue and slightly surreal scenarios, the stories manage to convey high states of anxiety within relatively few pages…Striking reading for short story aficionados.”
Mid-American Review (Mia Taylor)
“a fresh and original voice… the stories are far from bleak, seamed as they are with a deadpan black humor, and enlivened by sharp, brisk telling.”
Other Press:
Publishers Weekly interview with Benjamin Woodard “Life Turned Up a Notch: PW Talks with Jessica Hollander”
“If I were to define the literary tradition I think I’m writing in, it would be hyperrealism. Someone like Gerhard Richter creates photorealistic works of art, something that seems like a photo, but then when you get closer, you realize it’s too bright, too vivid, and you notice that this is actually a painting. That’s how, stylistically, I think about my own writing: it’s turned up a notch. Dialogue is heightened, and things that happen are just a little bit more extreme than they would be in normal life.”
Top 12 Short Story Collections of 2013 (Benjamin Woodard):
“ Hollander’s debut is a smart, confident book bursting with tales of pregnant couples, lost souls, and finding a place in the world.”
http://benjaminjwoodard.com/2013/12/07/top-12-short-story-collections-of-2013/
The Story Prize Blog: “Jessica Hollander and the Naked Workout”
“I’ve never written a story based directly on a story someone told me, but it’s surprising what people say that will grow into an idea for a story, which is why writers can’t be hermits no matter how much they might sometimes like to be.”
Muse (Te Duffour): “Alabama Writers Inspire, Entertain at Callaway”
“Both Hollander and Wells displayed precise, creative prose, and their readings were applauded warmly by the students and faculty in attendance.”
Huffington Post: “Publishers Weekly: Best New Books for the Week of October 14, 2013
Staff Picks: (Little Noah Webster) West Hartford Public Library
Contributors/Alumni Updates
Sewanee Writers’ Conference
Alumni Update
The Cincinnati Review
Alumni Update
Prism Review
Umbrella Factory
Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love
Michael Martone, author of
Four for a Quarter
Wendy Rawlings, author of The Agnostics and Come Back Irish
Kevin Wilson, author of
The Family Fang
Now a Publishers Weekly Starred Review - October 2013
Kellie Wells, author of Fat Girl, Terrestrial
More Reviews of
Jessica Hollander's Work
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