Worship of the Common Heart: New and Selected Stories by Patricia Henley

From the Publisher

An impressive overview of a writer whose career is still climbing, Worship of the Common Heart allows us a rare opportunity to observe twenty years in the evolution of a writer of uncommon talent and heart. Emotionally complex, achingly real, these nineteen stories focus on the everyday, defining moments of life, celebrating the unsung and calling attention to the ignored. A young woman comes to an absolute and sad realization about her relationship at the very moment she gives birth. A woman enamored of younger men stumbles upon joy in the most unlikely place. A young nun takes a vacation with her earthy, unpredictable sister and learns a lesson in worship. Told with stunning confidence and honesty, the stories in Worship of the Common Heart revel in sensuality and the complexity of longings.

Book Magazine

Written over a span of twenty years, these nineteen wise and emotionally complex short stories by the 1999 National Book Award finalist reveal her to be an unusual writer of true distinction. Focusing on women at all stages of their lives, the earlier stories feature restless women who've always been on the move but are finally faced with settling down, as well as those trying to make it on the fringe of mainstream life. In the lovely "As Luck Would Have It," the rhythm of the seasons dictates the shape and form of relationships, while in "The Late Hunt" a woman has to repress her real feelings about a deer hunt for the sake of her relationship. Relationships, marriage and motherhood, and how they define women's lives, feature prominently in most of the stories. Mothers collapse under the strain of dealing with irresponsible husbands and too many children, while others become hard and bitter due to disappointment and dashed dreams. Sexuality permeates a lot of these stories, such as in "Hard Feelings," where a daughter's emerging sexuality ignites her mother's, or in the raw "Friday Night," where two women casually chat about their disillusionment with their open-marriage lifestyles. Immediate in their impact, these stories distinguish themselves from the bland sameness that characterizes much of contemporary short fiction.
—Ann Collette

Publishers Weekly

Post-hippie attitudes--disdain for conventional mores, a preference for relationships with like-minded free spirits and an appreciation of nature--inform this impressive third story collection by Henley, whose first novel, Hummingbird House, was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the New Yorker Best Fiction Book Award. Set across the U.S. wherever loose communities of family and friends settle down, from hardscrabble rural Indiana to the Pacific Northwest, the 19 stories capture defining moments in otherwise ordinary lives. "The Secret of Cartwheels" is one of two tales about a large Catholic family, no doubt inspired by Henley's own experience as the eldest of eight children. At age 13, narrator Roxanne and two of her younger sisters are sent off to a children's home because their mother, an alcoholic, can't cope with her many offspring. Roxanne, plagued by her inability to turn cartwheels and her habit of wetting the bed, dreams despite herself of the life she used to know. In "Cargo," Roxanne reappears as an adult, settled in Montana. Her sister has called to say their mother is dying and the family is gathering. In attempting to decide whether she'll go home, Roxie acknowledges that she's left many places hoping for a new beginning, forgetting every time "that the things you hate the most are the things that travel with you." Many of Henley's characters live transient lives, work at menial jobs--mechanic, fruit picker, waitress--identify with the lyrics of country music and look to dope, booze and casual sex as palliatives. They recognize their weaknesses, but they don't give up the game. The author's sense of humor shines often. In "Slinkers," Joanne, whose "laughter always made you feel good" is an "intuitive shopper" who proclaims, "If you find a pair of jeans that really fit, buy two pair." These stories, by a marvelous writer who speaks from both the heart and the head, are as comfortable as well-worn denim. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

The stories in National Book Award finalist Henley's (Hummingbird House) collection will engage readers with their folksy, down-to-earth style and likable, flawed characters. Many of these stories celebrate attachments of the heart in one form or another, be they family ties or bonds between spouses or lovers, as in the title story, "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," and "Lessons in Joy." At the same time, the author examines the fragility of these bonds and the importance of holding onto them as long as possible. As the narrator, Kate, so eloquently puts it in "Labrador": "I've wrenched my love away from many places and people, and my heart goes out to my mother for what she must have experienced. I wish I could tell her that now. When parents die young, you become old before your time, living in the past with them, in memory." These stories were written over 20 years; some are reprints, while others are published for the first time. Recommended for their gracefulness, insight, and emotional content. Lisa Nussbaum, Dauphin Cty. Lib. Sys., Harrisburg, PA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

New York Times Book Review - Jeff Waggoner

In these observant stories Henley pays close attention to these women's howls of pain and pleasure; this collection has an emotional honesty that is difficult to deny.

Product Details

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

The liquor store, with its lit up Art-Deco façade, had looked like a miniature movie theater to Stephanie when she was a girl. A place of ever-changing escape. The bottles on the wooden shelves gleamed brownly in the store's dim interior. It smelled of bergamot-Earl Gray tea. Aunt Caroline had a back room behind a louver door, and in the back room were stacks of library books and magazines, a chintz-covered easy chair, a hassock in the shape of an elephant, a chrome hotplate whereon a battered copper teakettle perpetually simmered, tea things-wire balls and spoons, cream and lemon wedges in Tupperware containers-and other comforts. Lemon Drops. Baby blue tissues. There, in Aunt Caroline's back room, Stephanie had discovered the world. Reading Denise Levertov and Margaret Mead. Listening to public radio. Stephanie, too, went away to college, and she did not return until she entered the motherhouse and Aunt Caroline had become old, unreasonably so it seemed. Her legs were swollen below the knee and she kept them wrapped in white cotton towels she purchased from a Goodwill. The towels were imprinted with Emerald Hotel. She soaked them in an herbal solution that stank to high heaven. Her feet were crippled: bunions and corns signalled stormy weather. Her glasses were heavy and she refused to consider surgery to correct her vision. She'd had a life of promise but Speedway had pulled her back in, like a raveling thread.

Where Stephanie had grown up, with Aunt Caroline nearby, the houses had a muddied, shrunken look, as though time and the elements were beating them into the ground. Gutters dipped and tapped in wind against the aluminum siding. Storm drains clogged with twigs and trash. Whenever her family came to visit the motherhouse, it was as though she were forced to go back. Back to their front yard turned into a parking lot for the Indy 500, her father in a T-shirt, collecting twenty dollars a car. Back to her mother's bottle of tears from a statue of the Virgin Mary. To Grace's filthy ashtrays and her smoke smell. And the television always on. Disjunctive memories. Permanent and substantial. She often thought sinfully, pridefully: how could I have come from there?