The Earth and the Sky: Stories by Debbie Lee Wesselmann

Publishers Weekly

Something or someone lost in translation is the general theme of the 15 short stories in this first collection from Wesselmann (author of one novel, Trutor & the Balloonist), yet each story is noteworthy for setting its own tone and sense of place. Wesslemann's characters are dislocated or displaced: a grieving Rhode Island woman who spends her vacations driving into tornado country; a newlywed Chinese woman facing her new American family in Princeton; a teacher named Ingrid who has broken up with her boyfriend but can't let herself give up her nonrefundable ticket to their Caribbean vacation. Wesselmann's people lack illusions and bear scars of deaths and abandonments; still, they must be described as seekers. Often what they seek is the ability to articulate their own desires and fears. Afraid of snorkeling, Ingrid remembers an ex-boyfriend who "could not understand that it was not the height that frightened her but the dependence on a mechanical thing, the parachute, to save her life." Without minimalist austerity, and with only the occasional reliance on tidy endings and too-neat images, Wesselmann has found a lucid voice in which to describe her characters' distinctly contemporary confusions. (Mar.)

Solomon

...elegant debut collection... -- Andy Solomon, New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

Around the world in 15 polished if unremarkable stories as Wesselmann touches down in places as far-flung as Chile, Japan, Italy—and in American states north and south. To this first-time author's credit, the choice of diverse settings for her tales of love and loss never seems worked or flaky. Characters aren't just foreign imports doing their thing in local costume. The three best tales are "Rosa's Vision," "Core Puncher," and "Ingrid, Face Down." The first follows a Chilean farmer's wife who recently lost her son in an accident and finds both herself and the son becoming objects of veneration when she meets a mysterious stranger on Good Friday. "Core Puncher" is about a woman whose young daughter died of cancer. She assuages her grief by chasing tornadoes and getting as close to their core as possible. Similarly, an overimaginative teacher in "Ingrid..." conquers her fear of water by snorkeling in the Caribbean; there, she discovers a "sensation of complete peace and isolation." In the title piece, the daughter of an Italian family who rents out their villa to visiting foreigners grows to better understand her father when an American dad thanks her for recovering his own daughter, astray in a forest. Other tales observe with wry wit the adjustments that couples must make when they're joined in multicultural marriages—adjustments both to their new families and their new countries. The young Chinese woman in "Life as a Dragon," for instance, defends herself culturally in her adopted US ("She did not understand the importance of making snowballs") by metaphorically playing the dragon, slipping "her tail without detection around the waist of an enemy"—and, like any goodChinese, never drawing blood. Stories that move and amuse but lack a distinctive edge.

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