Grant Jarrett lives in New York City, where he earns his living as a writer, ghostwriter, editor, and musician. His work has appeared in the San Francisco Book Review, Eclectica Magazine, and numerous other publications. His first novel, Ways of Leaving, won the “Best New Fiction” category in the 2014 International Book Awards.
"Many have searched their childhood home address using Google
Earth. You will, too, after reading this exceptional collection of
19 essays by writers who located the satellite images of their
dwellings, found anywhere from Iowa to Liberia. Editor Jarrett
introduces the anthology as a 'hodgepodge of thoughts, sensations,
and emotions an image brings.' A thread of sadness runs through the
accounts as memories emerge of loud arguments, disappearing
fathers, family violence, and whispers about not enough money. The
charm of each piece is how the author balances that raw stress with
recollections of the joys of youth. Antonya Nelson revisits her
mazelike childhood home with her siblings, who, after a few bottles
of wine, decide to venture into their favorite nooks and crannies.
Roof climbing is a particular passion recalled by Ru Freeman and
Roy Kesey. What matters today is not the feat, but the dreams
realized up on the roof. Porochista Khakpour, born in Tehran and
raised in Los Angles, recalls “the dingbats,” the two-story
apartment complexes with cheap rents and fancy names.
VERDICT: Slim and succinct, this exquisite compilation shows how
the universal nature of childhood experiences trump both cultural
and geographical differences.
—Library Journal, starred review
Featured as an Elle magazine's "Trust Us" book, May 2016
"While each essay is a worthy and thought-provoking piece of craft,
the true achievement is in the sum of these parts, a chorus of
diverse experiences that work together to define 'home' in all of
its possibilities.”
—Shelf Awareness
"The essays strike a variety of tones, including curiosity,
ambivalence, thoughtfulness, and earnestness. Some writers
emphasize the conceit of looking at their old homes from the
vantage point of a satellite. Ru Freeman and Jen Michalski, in
their pieces, discuss what can be seen and what is missing in the
pictures, as well as what is impossible to capture. Jeffery Renard
Allen and Pamela Erens return to Chicago’s North Side and South
Side, respectively, to capture different aspects of the city. Other
writers take readers to California, Canada, New York, and Sri
Lanka. Some reexamine their families, while others consider the
fragility of memory. All of the essays show, in their own ways, how
homes make us and how we attempt to make homes for ourselves, at
least in memory. Some readers may well be inspired to take similar
journeys into the past."
—Publishers Weekly
"Jarrett has compiled a powerful and must-read collection of
meditations on the meaning of home. Each essay in this diverse
collection—with writings from rural America to war-torn Sri
Lanka—transports the reader on a fresh and riveting journey into
the hauntings and heartbreak of childhood. As a whole these varied
voices come together in a kind of symphony, a harmonious reminder
that individual stories illuminate the connection we all have to
one another. Ultimately, these voices together transform this book
into its own kind of shelter."
—Jennifer Percy, author of Demon Camp, a New York Times Notable
Book
“The House That Made Me is a revelatory investigation of home, that
most beloved and fraught word—how home wields the power to shape
us, undo us, remake us. How we carry it, how we let it go. The
table of contents for The House That Made Me includes some of the
finest writers working today, and the worlds that exist inside this
tremendous anthology suggest contemporary literature has never been
so vital.”
—Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me
Past Praise for . . .
Grant Jarrett's On Ways of Leaving
“Ruthlessly brilliant writing brings grace to a story smoldering in
pain.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“... an outstanding and devastating new novel ...”
—Independent Publisher
Alice Eve Cohen's On The Year My Mother Came Back
“I love, love, love this book. It’s so rich, so real and so moving
… astonishingly wonderful—I was enthralled … You're a brilliant
writer.”
—Caroline Leavitt, book critic for Boston Globe and People, and New
York Times best-selling author of Pictures of You
“Fiercely brave and unflinchingly honest.”
—The Brooklyn Rail
Kris Radish
“Radish's prose is a joy—energetic, attitudinal, often hilarious
and perfectly suited to the anecdotal form.”
—Kirkus
“Kris Radish creates characters that seek and the celebrate the
discovery of...women's innate power.”
—The Denver Post
Lee Upton's On The Tao of Humiliation: Stories, named one of the
“best books of 2014” by Kirkus Reviews
“Masterful stories by a writer of great lyrical gifts. Upton
focuses on personal relationships, especially the immediacy and
estrangement that emerge from the intensity of family life … Upton
specializes in ending her stories with epiphanies that can be
searing in their poignancy. These 17 tales explore personal and
familial relationships with both pathos and humor—and all are well
worth reading.”
—Kirkus Starred Review
“Poet, essayist, and fiction writer Upton’s stories are playful,
full of clever allusions that are deftly presented … Upton’s story
openings tend to be vivid; they’re great hooks … This is a smart
and highly entertaining book.”
—Publishers Weekly Starred Review
Pamela Erens
“Everyone who has the good fortune to pick up one of Erens' (two)
novels becomes a fan. Whether writing about teenagers at boarding
school (The Virgins) or a loner at the end of his tether (The
Understory), Erens has a gift for making you want to spend time in
her characters' company. Then you want to scout her other fans to
discuss your good fortune of discovering her talents.”
—Reader’s Digest “23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read By
Now”(2014)
Roy Kesey
“Kesey excels at evoking the geography of the country.”
—Jonathan Barnes, Literary Review (London)
“A near-direct descendant of Samuel Beckett.”
—Jonathan Messinger, Time Out Chicago
Ru Freeman's On Sal Mal Lane, and Extraordinary Rendition:
(American) Writers on Palestine
“Freeman never strays far from the neighborhood’s youngest
inhabitants. They are wondrous to behold, with their intelligence,
imagination and innocence. I don’t know that I’ve seen children
more opulently depicted in fiction since Dickens.”
—Christina Garcia for the New York Times Book Review
“Ru Freeman has made a book unlike anything I’ve ever read. It’s a
great contribution to not only to the conversation about Palestine,
but to the larger one about peace and justice.”
—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
Tim Johnston's Descent
“Outstanding . . . The days when you had to choose between a great
story and a great piece of writing? Gone.”
—Esquire
“The story [Descent] unfolds brilliantly, always surprisingly . .
.The magic of his prose equals the horror of Johnston’s story; each
somehow enhances the other . . . Read this
astonishing novel.”
—The Washington Post
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