Rules for visiting : a novel / Jessica Francis Kane.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780525559221
- ISBN: 0525559221
- Physical Description: 289 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
- Publisher: New York : Penguin Press, 2019.
- Copyright: ©2019.
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Female friendship > Fiction. Gardeners > Fiction. United States > Social life and customs > 20th century > Fiction. |
Genre: | Domestic fiction. |
Available copies
- 4 of 6 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Grand Forks and District Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 6 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Grand Forks | FIC KAN (Text) | 35142002680543 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2019 April #1
*Starred Review* In the age of Facebook, the true nature of friendship can seem muddled. At any rate, May Attaway, 40, single, and living in her childhood home with her aging father, has preferred the company of the trees and flowers; hence her career as a botanist and landscape architect. She can name three childhood pals and a woman from grad school, but she's a lousy friend: no texts, no breezy Facebook status updates, barely a holiday greeting. Still, Lindy, Vanessa, Neera, and Rose have been important to May, so she sets out on a journey to reconnect with them and find out if there is a reciprocal kernel of friendship that this gardener can nourish back into a blossoming relationship. They are far-flung, but May visits each one, hoping that they can assuage the loneliness and feeling of being unmoored that is increasingly permeating her life. Kane's (This Close, 2013) preternaturally self-aware heroine is an intriguing mix of frustrating curmudgeon and aging ingenue, and in her quest for self-improvement, she voices the doubts and dreams of any woman who has questioned what it means to be a true friend. Rich in subtexts and lush imagery, Kane's novel is a sure bet for lively book discussions. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2019 May
Rules for VisitingPerhaps the greatest irony of our modern era is that in a time when we appear more connected than ever, most of us have never felt more alone. Certainly this is true for May Attaway, the protagonist of Jessica Francis Kane's meditative second novel, Rules for Visiting.
Largely preferring the company of plants to people, May is a single, middle-aged woman who lives in her childhood home with her father and cat and works as a gardener at the local university. She is the first to admit that although her world is relatively small and uneventful, the life she has cultivated for herself is a comfortable one (albeit mundane and vaguely hermitic). When she is gifted with an unanticipated month of paid vacation, May is inspired to revise her stance on relationships and broaden her horizons. Armed with little more than an Emily Post guide to etiquette, a book of quotations on friendship and a suitcase named Grendel (after the friendless monster in Beowulf), May sets out on a transformative pilgrimage to reconnect with the four women she considers her dearest friends.Â
A 21st-century novel for those with old-fashioned sensibilities, Rules for Visiting is an empathetic yet enigmatic read. May's story is not for the impatient, as the narrative perambulates through a series of discursive musings on friendship, flora, family, grief and how connections can fail or flourish in this modern age. For much of the novel, May keeps the reader at arm's length, charming with her wry wit but using these rhetoric sleights of hand as substitutes for real understanding and intimacy. But as May becomes more comfortable with the art of connecting with the people in her life, she reveals more of her true heart to the reader as well, gradually shedding light on the trauma that led to such a closed-off life.Â
Rules for Visiting takes its time to fully take root, but the end result is a sturdy novel that blossoms rather beautifully.
Copyright 2019 BookPage Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2019 March #1
In Kane's (This Close, 2013, etc.) contemplative second novel, a woman uses an unexpected gift of time to visit four long-neglected friends.Despite the wire hanger of a plot surrounding these visits, the novel turns on narrator May's ruminations. Her love of cats and trees (beautiful arboreal drawings by Edward Carey punctuate the text), not to mention her suitcase named Grendel, suggests a delicate, even twee sensibility, but May is capable of expressing curmudgeonly tart opinions about everything from home renovation to the value of neighbors to social media's evils. Approaching 40, she lives quietly with her aged father in her hometown, working as a gardener at the local university and pondering how best to use 30 days of paid leave the school has awarded her. Inspired by readings on friendship, a skill she'd like to improve, and using The Odyssey as a reverse model of epic adventuringâ"What if Penelope had left?" she asks herselfâMay sets off to visit her long -distance friends. All are surprised by May's visits but pleased to see her. In return, May follows Emily Post and Greek travel etiquette to become a perfect guest, although she tends to hover at the brink of actual intimacy. Her cautious affection blends with sly humor in her observations of each hostess: the suburban homemaker cracking under the pressure of creating internet-worthy domestic perfection; the Seattle ultraprogressive in the middle of a divorce; the Manhattan sophisticate stressed by her new roles as second wife and stepmother; and the landscape architect leading an invitingly cozy single life in London. May is generous in sharing her thoughts, but the reader must search between the lines to read her heart as May begins receiving postcards hinting at a desire for more than friendship from a nice man back home. More apparent is May's emotional struggle with unresolved grief over her mother's lingering illness and death years earlier.Engagingly cleareyed prose a b out a winningly eccentric heroine in love with trees and literature. Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2019 May
In Kane's fourth novel (after
Copyright 2019 Library Journal.The Report ), 40-year-old university gardener May lives in the town where she grew up. She's more comfortable cultivating plants than relationships. May is a keen observer of people but engages only minimally with them. When she unexpectedly gets awarded extra leave at her job, she decides to travel to visit four friends who have significantly impacted her life at various stages. But her friends have moved away and are busy. May's hope is to reconnect with them and see what their lives are like besides what they present on social media. There, and back again, May might realize that her outward quest has been an inner journey all along.VERDICT Kane's delightful tale celebrates friendship, family, love, joy in the ordinary, finding peace, and connecting with those around us. Highly recommended for fans of humorous, touching stories about friendship and self-discovery. [See Prepub Alert, 11/26/18.]âSusan Moritz, Silver Spring, MD - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2019 March #4
In Kane's impeccably written and surprisingly moving second novel (after
Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly.The Report ), May Attaway is an endearingly principled university gardener approaching 40, who lives in her childhood home in Anneville with her father, a retired professor. She moved back to take care of her mother, who has since died, and has neither married nor had children. Though not unhappy, May's life is at an impasse. When a poem about a yew tree on campus wins a major prize, and a reporter points out May planted the original cutting, she is rewarded with 30 days of paid leave. This coincides with the death of a writer May never knew personally, but whose tribute site May is fond of reading after it went up following her death. So May, seeing how beloved the writer is, decides to use her month off to visit four old friends: Lindy, a happy mom of three and homemaker; Neera, living on the West Coast and navigating a disintegrating marriage; Vanessa, living a cosmopolitan life in New York; and Rose, also a gardener and living in her native England. On May's visits, she comes to realize the importance of empathy in cultivating relationships, not only with them but with the many people in her life, both past and present. May's journey is lovely and deeply affecting.(May)