Window: Stories and Essays

by Nancy Jensen

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977386147
• ISBN13: 9780977386147
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Fleur-de-Lis Press
• Length: 142 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Hallelujah - a great new author!

This is an extremely well-written gem of a book whose author has put together a collection of essays and stories which left me wanting to read everything she has ever written. She is one of the rare breed of author who combines fine storytelling with the ability to speak without fear or apology of her struggles with issues that I believe virtually all of us deal with throughout our lives. Sometimes wickedly funny, often cutting through the tangles of emotion and thought with a very sharp knife, I found myself identifying with so much in this book: as a woman, emphatically yes, but also as a person who has lived through the last several decades of a world that so often makes so little sense. What a pleasure to encounter this author! I've ordered it for friends and family of varying ages and gender, and hope we see many more works by Ms. Jensen.

Compelling

Nancy Jensen's debut collection "Window" compels you to stay with the author from start to finish. I picked up the book intending to read only one of the five stories or five essays (I started with the essays) at a sitting, and was chagrined to find I'd read the whole book in an afternoon and the next morning. (Chagrined because I felt like a kid who snuck her family's entire quart of ice-cream.) I'd tried to get up and do other things, but found myself ruminating on the pieces, wondering how the author tied so many disparate points together into satisfying and intriguing resolutions. This author seems at home with conflict, and is not afraid to face struggles within herself that compel the reader to take similar stock. Conflicts define and lay bare the souls of Jensen's characters, like the History professor who's ashamed of his Appalachian roots, so advises students to look forward, not back. The student protagonist recognizes him as a fool, because in denying his personal history, the professor gives the lie to his own profession. Such charletons people this book, such as the art professor who's an armchair liberal, yet traffics in the power differential between himself and his student lovers and third-world servants. Yet in the midst of these highly flawed characters, the author never lets herself off, is hardest on herself when examining her own biases and evasions. This is an intriguing search and the author makes some stunning discoveries. I highly recommend this unique and compelling collection. Mary Lee Coe Fowler