Description
Book SynopsisIn the tradition of the meditative essay, the writing of Robert Vivian begins with a mundane moment and, through the delicate workings of curiosity, contemplation, and inspiration, reveals unsuspected meaning. In his second collection of essays Vivian finds his occasions in midwestern towns and European cities.
Trade Review“Robert Vivian is a rare gift to readers—a writer whose natural subject is the soul. In his essays, whether his setting is Turkey, Hungary, or the hallway of his Michigan home, Vivian invokes and portrays the rich and startling inner realms of experience of which he is both in trembling awe and utterly unafraid.”—Lawrence Sutin, author of
When to Go into the Water: A Novel“Robert Vivian is one of the finest, most lyrical essayists of his time, giving voice to an internal life fully engaged with a sensuous external world. Vivian writes with illuminating and potent powers about the startling and shimmering wonder all around us. Whether his subject is eating at a Big Boy in Alma, Michigan, or clearing weeds from a Jewish cemetery in Poland, Vivian’s prose brings us inside moments of surprising beauty, sadness, heartbreak, love, tenderness, longing, and, most important, hope.”—Sue William Silverman, author of
Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir "Beautiful essays to read and savor one at a time."—
Kirkus"Vivian's essays are introspective little gems that celebrate and elevate the commonplace. . . . From Michigan to Nebraska to Eastern Europe, an eclectic group of settings provides vivid context for this string of extraordinarily evocative writings. Readers who love the imaginative leaps the mind can make will take pleasure in this unique collection."—Margaret Flanagan,
Booklist"With a poet's eye and ear, Vivian elevates the everyday to the universal in a contemplative voice like "the least cricket of evening under the porch of a clapboard house, chirping out its one note of everlasting wisdom.""—Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kans.
"These essays contain some of the finest writing I have ever read. We readers are big mammals. We lumber through life as best we can, leaving so much in our wake unnoticed. Robert Vivian makes up for this shortcoming. He's got something extra going on, some reflexive seventh sense, which might be called the ability to
make sense of the world. Reading these essays, you grow roots, gain dimension; your universe expands."—Susan Salter Reynolds,
Los Angeles Review of BooksTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
I. Hauntings
Ghost Hallway
Hearing Trains
Ashtray County
Gestures in Waiting
Casino Love
Walking with Marisa
The Fog Sleepers
Hotel in Auschwitz
Death of a Shortstop
Notes from the Konukevi
II. Folk Music
Beggar on the Danube
Looking for the Bishop
Doctor Whisper
Starlight in a Spoon
A Prejudice of Teeth
These Faces
Porch Falling
Shadows Moving Porch-Wise
Falling into the Arms of a Dervish
III. Hope
Town
Army of Wonder
Guardian of the Lost Bell
Bus Stop Elegy
Every Day a Flower Opens
Washed Away
Working in the Jewish Cemetery
Latecomer to Glorious Places
Seeing a Lake from Far Away
Why I Go North
How Gunshots Became a Comfort to Me
