Things to Come and Go
Published on 27. July 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
160 pages
978-1-5290-3592-6 (ISBN)
Description
'Reminiscent of Edna O'Brien, with shades too of Jean Rhys.' - The Irish Times
Things to Come and Go showcases the incomparable talent of Bette Howland in three novellas of stunning power, beauty, and sustaining humour.
'Birds of a Feather' is a daughter's story of her extended, first-generation family, the 'big, brassy yak-yakking Abarbanels'. Esti, a merciless, astute observer, recalls growing up amid (the confusions and difficulties of) their history, quarrels, judgements, noisy love and inescapable bonds of blood.
In 'The Old Wheeze' a single mother in her twenties returns to her sunless apartment after a date at the ballet. Shifting between four viewpoints - the young woman, the older professor who took her out, her son, and her son's babysitter - the story masterfully captures the impossibility of liberating ourselves from the self.
In 'The Life You Gave Me', a woman at the midpoint of life is called to her father's sickbed. A lament for all that is forever unsaid and unsayable, the story is 'an anguished meditation on growing up, growing old and being left behind, a complaint against time.' (The New York Times)
First published in 1984, Things to Come and Go, Bette Howland's final book, is a collection of haunting urgency about arrivals and departures, and the private, insoluble dramas in the lives of three women.
With an introduction by Rumaan Alam, bestselling author of Leave the World Behind.
Things to Come and Go showcases the incomparable talent of Bette Howland in three novellas of stunning power, beauty, and sustaining humour.
'Birds of a Feather' is a daughter's story of her extended, first-generation family, the 'big, brassy yak-yakking Abarbanels'. Esti, a merciless, astute observer, recalls growing up amid (the confusions and difficulties of) their history, quarrels, judgements, noisy love and inescapable bonds of blood.
In 'The Old Wheeze' a single mother in her twenties returns to her sunless apartment after a date at the ballet. Shifting between four viewpoints - the young woman, the older professor who took her out, her son, and her son's babysitter - the story masterfully captures the impossibility of liberating ourselves from the self.
In 'The Life You Gave Me', a woman at the midpoint of life is called to her father's sickbed. A lament for all that is forever unsaid and unsayable, the story is 'an anguished meditation on growing up, growing old and being left behind, a complaint against time.' (The New York Times)
First published in 1984, Things to Come and Go, Bette Howland's final book, is a collection of haunting urgency about arrivals and departures, and the private, insoluble dramas in the lives of three women.
With an introduction by Rumaan Alam, bestselling author of Leave the World Behind.
Reviews / Votes
Howland's striking prose breathes life into the everyday, the domestic world sung with a lyrical note . . . reminiscent of Edna O'Brien, with shades too of Jea Rhys. -- Sarah Gilmartin * Irish Times * Beneath the bright patter and eye-catching descriptions, each story has sadness at its core . . . a flood of energetic storytelling. -- Marion Winik * Washington Post * A writer of unusual talent, power and intelligence . . . A vigorous, original voice, an incisive mind and an uncompromised lyrical vision . . . Stunning power and beauty abound in this book; it is a trove of lyric riches. -- Johanna Kaplan * New York Times * The three novellas that constitute Things to Come and Go feel, at moments, like thinly disguised autobiography. With her flexible stance toward reality, her eye for the amusing, curious minutiae of existence, and her tonal range . . . Howland recalls the short-story writer Lucia Berlin. -- <font face="verdana, tahoma"><span>Abigail Deutsch</span></font> * Harper's Magazine * There is being seen, and then there is seeing. There is no seeing like Bette Howland's. On every page, catching the narrator's every glance, are observations rich in detail and delight-honest, acerbic, alert, and always dazzling in their inventiveness and wry, hard-edged wisdom. -- <span>Amitava Kumar</span> One of the significant writers of her generation -- Saul Bellow There's no more interesting tale of neglect and rediscovery than that of Bette Howland. -- Lucy Scholes * Paris Review * [Howland's] rhythmic sentences and striving characters resonate as much today as they did when first written in the 1970s and early 80s . . . one of American literature's rising stars. -- <font face="verdana, tahoma"><span>Sarah Hughes</span></font> * iNews * Howland's great theme is the shared ache of human existence, a commonality that sometimes unites us, but more often divides and isolates. She captures this paradoxical push-pull between the longing and the resistance to connect -- <font face="verdana, tahoma"><span>Diane Cole</span></font> * New York Jewish Week *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
118 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5290-3592-6 (9781529035926)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Person
Bette Howland (1937-2017) was the author of three books: W-3, Blue in Chicago, and Things to Come and Go. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984, after which, though she continued writing, she would not publish another book. Near the end of her life, her stories found new readers when a portfolio of her work appeared in a special issue of A Public Space magazine exploring a generation of women writers, their lifetimes of work, and questions of anonymity and public attention in art.