Books with author Haven Kimmel

From the bestselling author of 'The Solace of Leaving Early', a funny, heartwrenching and unforgettable novel following the fortunes of a particulary feisty young female pool hustler. Cassie Claiborne, at ten, was surely too young to be the head of her disparate family. But who else was going to do it? Growing up in Indiana with her distant, heartbroken mother, Laura, her fragile, eccentric sister Belle, and her beloved grandfather Poppy, Cassie got sick of waiting for her father to come home from his everlasting gambling and drinking binges and took matters into her own hands. Taught by her father to play pool, Cassie was a natural and was soon hustling experienced pool players -- and winning. We follow Cassie from a complex little girl to a rebellious and impetuous young woman as she tries to create a world for her mother and sister. Overwhelmed but compelled by her family's love, Cassie feels herself drawn back to the past by the stories of her mother's youth, and she leaves her town for New Orleans, hoping that there she can find a truth to soothe her wounded soul and to allow herself the happiness she has been denied. Funny, heartbreaking, full of the eccentricity of small-town life and the overwrought drama of the close-knit family, 'Something Rising (Light and Swift)' is the story of a very unique young woman who knows that 'the worst thing that can happen to you is that you will find what you seek'. It tells of grief and love and growing up and leaving home in a way that is desperately sad but ultimately uplifting.

This Today Show book club selection is now available on audio. Laced with fine storytelling, sharp wit, dead-on observations, and moments of sheer joy, Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds her.Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period: people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.

A heart rending story of the lives of a few inhabitants of a small American town and the massive effect of one very violent death. Langston Braverman has just walked out on her PhD oral exams and returned home to Haddington, Indiana in a fragile emotional state. She retreats to her parents' attic, unsure what to do with the summer or the rest of her life, but with vague plans to write the great American novel. But it's hot, and she is distracted beyond capacity to think by the banality of this small-town home she has returned to, and plunged deep in the trauma of a self-imposed existential dilemma from which not even news of the death of her childhood best friend, Alice, can rouse her. A few houses down Plum Street, Amos Townsend, the local preacher, is suffering from a crippling crisis of faith, wondering how he can continue in the role of spiritual leader of this community. Traumatised by Alice's violent death, guilt-ridden over his inability to prevent it, he feels a responsibility for the welfare of Alice's two suddenly orphaned young girls, altered beyond recognition from the shock of having witnessed the bloody end to their parents' marriage. Langston's mother, meanwhile, has forced her into the role of carer, and the developing relationship between the damaged children, and these two slightly hopeless adults helps all four embark on a process of recovery and redemption that is heartbreakingly poignant and utterly convincing. 'The Solace of Leaving Early' is a remarkable novel -- generous, warm-hearted, smart and ambitious. It is a novel of people and ideas, of family ties, and of how those ties endure for better or worse, of grief and love, of leaving home and returning, of the overwhelming secrets that rest quietly within us. It is so sweet and smart, it's a present.

The New York Times bestselling memoir about growing up in small-town Indiana, from the author of The Solace of Leaving Early. When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards. Laced with fine storytelling, sharp wit, dead-on observations, and moments of sheer joy, Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds Zippy.

In her first two books, Haven Kimmel claimed her spot on the literary scene- surprising readers with her memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, and winning an outpouring of critical acclaim for her first novel, The Solace of Leaving Early. Now, in her second novel, she brings to the page a heroine's tireless quest for truth, love, justice, and the perfect game of 9-ball. Cassie Claiborne's world is riddled with problems beyond her control: her hard- living, pool-shooting father has another wife; her stoic, long-suffering mother is incapable of moving herself mentally away from the kitchen window; her sister Belle is a tempest of fragility and brilliance; her closest friends, Puck and Emmy, are adolescent harbingers of their own doomed futures. Frustrated by her inability to care deeply enough for so many troubled souls, Cassie finds in the local pool hall an oasis of green felt where she can master objects and restrain her emotions. As Cassie grows from a quietly complex girl into a headstrong young woman, she takes on the thankless role of family provider by working odd jobs and hustling pool. All the while, she keeps her eye on the ultimate prize: wringing suitable justice out of past wrongs and freeing herself from the inertia that is her life. In this ultimately uplifting story, Haven Kimmel reaches deep into the hamstrung souls of her fictional corner of Indiana. Remarkable for its tough tenderness, Something Rising (Light and Swift) is an astonishing work of pure heartbreak.