Breaking Her Fall - Softcover

Goodwin, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156029693 ISBN 13: 9780156029698

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2004

Synopsis

"Breaking Her Fall is a corker-- vivid, brilliantly marbled with harmonies and textures and people vibrant with life." -- Richard Bausch

Just before eleven on an ordinary summer night in Washington, D.C., Tucker Jones picks up the phone, expecting to hear that his teenage daughter, Kat, is back from the movies. But the caller is another parent, a man who tells Tucker that Kat was actually at a party-- and makes a shocking allegation about what happened to her there. From that moment Breaking Her Fall sweeps irresistibly forward to it s wrenching, and redemptive, conclusion.

In a blind rage, Tucker races to the party to find Kat already departed, but his full-boil interrogation of the boys still present spills over into a confrontation-- and ends with one of the boys crashing into a glass tabletop. In a second, his rage turns to remorse, and he soon finds himself under arrest. Tucker could easily lose his home and his business, but he is most concerned about losing his daughter.

Stephen Goodwin writes with insight and rare power about the way that passion rearranges lives. As Tucker and Kat and everyone around them seek to repair the damages of that night, Breaking Her Fall charts their uncommonly difficult passage from despair to reconciliation and hope with extraordinary grace.

About this title

Review:

"A corker--vivid, brilliantly marbled with harmonies and textures and people vibrant with life."
--Richard Bausch

PRAISE FOR BREAKING HER FALL
"A frank, plain-spoken, passionate novel that got its grips on me. It is,
in one sense, a page-turner, and in another a true and good story of
human frailty and imperfection survived."--RICHARD FORD
"This summer's exquisitely rendered migraine is Stephen Goodwin's
novel Breaking Her Fall. It's an intelligent story full of vivid characters."
--MAUREEN CORRIGAN, on NPR'S FRESH AIR
"Goodwin gets so many things right here. Reminiscent of Robert Boswell, this is a layered, compassionate, extraordinarily graceful novel."
-- (07/01/2003)

"The tension in this novel begins in the first paragraph and does not cease until the last few pages."
--Huntsville Times

"Smart, serious, and contemplative."
--Kirkus (07/01/2003)

"Psychologically acute.... A memorable exploration of familial love and penance, with a likeably bewildered - and articulate - protagonist."
-- (06/30/2003)

From the Back Cover:

"A frank, plain-spoken, passionate novel that got its grips on me. It is, in one sense, a page turner, and in another a true and good story of human frailty and imperfection survived." - Richard Ford
On an ordinary summer night, Tucker Jones picks up the phone, expecting to hear from his fourteen-year-old daughter Kat. Instead it's another parent, who reports that Kat is not, as promised, at the movies, but at a party--and makes a shocking allegation about her activities there. Furious, Tucker races to the party. Kat has departed, but a full-boil interrogation ends with one of the teenage boys sent crashing into a glass tabletop. Rage turns instantly to remorse, and Tucker is arrested. He could easily lose his home and his business. But, most importantly, will he lose his daughter?
Breaking Her Fall charts the passage of a family through an all-too-imaginable crisis with extraordinary realism and transcendant grace.
"Somehow--and dramatizing this "somehow" is Goodwin's strength--a family, nearly destroyed in a single instant on a single night, manages to become whole again. What ultimately matters in this novel is finding a way to "break" a daughter's fall and heal a father's heart."--The Washington Post Book World
Stephen Goodwin is a professor of creative writing at George Mason University and the author of three previous books. A former director of the literature program at the National Endowment for the Arts, he has served two terms as president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. He lives in Washington, D.C.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0156029693
• ISBN 13: 9780156029698
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 408