Leaps of Faith

by Rachel Kranz

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374184445
• ISBN13: 9780374184445
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 565 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Memorable and Epic

I loved this book! It's a real page-turner. Ms. Kranz has captured the pulse of New York City with an exquisite array of pitch perfect voices running the spectrum of sexual orientation, gender and political position. It is epic in scope and yet very detailed and personal in each of its unique points of view. She has written a novel about intimacy and how we construct our intimate relationships that is political without being preachy. Her insightful glimpses into actor's lives, union organizers, traditional and non-traditional family structures and the web of relationships that keep them together are both painful and heartfelt. The characters have lingered with me long after the last page has been turned. The book reminds me of a fine tapestry, rich in texture and pattern, its story-lines beautifully woven together into a satisfying whole. I highly recommend this book!

A Great Summer--or Winter--Read

One of the most clever books I've ever read. It's funny, captivating, smart. You'll love the characters and want to take it with you everywhere. A real joy!

Forget _Bonfire of the Vanities_; Read _Leaps of Faith_!

Finally! *The* great read of the season has arrived. Rachel Kranz has fashioned a clever comedy of manners set in contemporary New York City that is by turns hilarious, moving and sexy. Thomas Wolfe's _Bonfire of the Vanities_ has nothing on _Leaps of Faith_, a real page-turner that manages to accomplish that rarest of literary feats: a novel that is light enough to keep one pleasantly entertained for more than 500 pages and simultaneously deep enough to make it worth your intellectual while. The novel takes on a whole slew of today's social issues -- gay marriage, police brutality, interracial relationships, class politics -- and makes them utterly human with a diverse cast of characters that you recognize and love from page one. Kranz deftly interweaves multiple plots and character voices so that you end up laughing and crying with Warren as he strives to marry Flip and become a father to his biracial niece Juliet, with Flip as he comes to terms with Warren's love and puts on a show with an experimental theater troupe, and with Rosie who struggles with "female problems" as she organizes a contentious group of workers at fictional Olympia University. This book is a series of overlapping conversations about everything everyone always thinks about but what only the few dare to say or do anything about, and as such it gently but firmly inspires you to get on with changing the world. In these cynical times, it is refreshing to read a book that points the way to new possibilities for living our lives, and does so not through cheap shock value but with a warm and clear-sighted acceptance of the way we live now. Highly recommended!

Buy it!

If you are looking for a page turner with heart and soul, please don't hesitate one moment longer...just go out and buy this book. It is an absolutely wonderful read from beginning to end!

Beach Reading for Socially Conscious Readers

LEAPS OF FAITH is a very smart book, featuring a large cast of characters and three intertwined stories: a gay couple contemplating marriage, a problematic strike at a large university, and a difficult theatrical performance. It is a remarkable combination of the visionary and the down-to-earth. Kranz has faith that the improbable can happen, but her faith is not naive or sentimental. Ultimately, she is grounded by her love of people: she listens to them carefully, she takes their desires seriously, she understands their doubts and anxieties. Some aspects of the book are very funny, such as the psychic who can see into every life but his own. Others are movingly poignant: the out-of-work black actress who dreams of Dorothy Dandridge. There are tour-de-force moments, as when Kranz creates an entire cop show and has different fans describe it, each from his or her own gender or ethnic perspective. Above all, it is fun to read, beach reading for socially conscious people. You'll be a better person for having read it.