{"product_id":"liquid-fragile-perishable-isbn-9781685891091","title":"Liquid, Fragile, Perishable","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Told  through interlocking narratives, this poignant debut novel captures   a  year in the life of a small Vermont town—but don’t let the pastoral   locale fool you; this book is anything but sleepy. Moving effortlessly   from the steamy to the heartbreaking, the novel handles themes such as   poverty, first love, drug abuse, unplanned pregnancy, and lust with   refreshing nuance.\"  —\u003ci\u003eOprah Daily\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA vivid and moving portrayal of the intricate web of relations and fate in a small New England town, told with interlocking storylines in a unique and mesmerizing voice of uncommon power in this debut novel.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMay has arrived in the tiny hamlet of Glenville, Vermont, bringing with it currents of rejuvenation and rebirth. For 3 families, though, the year ahead will prove to be a roller coaster of life-changing events, promises, and tragedies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLiquid, Fragile, Perishable\u003c\/i\u003e unspools via a chorus of unforgettable voices: an old-school Christian beekeeping family and newly transplanted New Yorkers; a trio of teenage girls and a deeply rooted family of ne’er-do-wells; and one woman who just wants to live alone in the woods. The shifting set of relations among the citizens of this community encompasses teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, poverty—and a cavalcade of thwarted dreams, young love in bloom, and poignant missed connections.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis powerful debut is a subtle and beautiful story about the interlocking relationships among the residents of a small town out of Sherwood Anderson or Thornton Wilder—but with a very contemporary set of problems ... By turns sexy, shocking, and wistful, this coruscating debut conveys the hopes, the sadness, and the secrets of a whole great world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTold in a vivid style of complete distinction, the novel has a magic and a momentum all its own, giving a look into the aching, silent heart of America.\u003cb\u003eAn\u003ci\u003e Oprah Daily\u003c\/i\u003e Most Anticipated Reads of 2024\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eRead Between the Spines\u003c\/i\u003e May 2024 Most Anticipated New Book Releases\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Told through interlocking narratives, this poignant debut novel captures   a year in the life of a small Vermont town—but don’t let the pastoral  locale fool you; this book is anything but sleepy. Moving effortlessly  from the steamy to the heartbreaking, the novel handles themes such as  poverty, first love, drug abuse, unplanned pregnancy, and lust with  refreshing nuance.\" \u003ci\u003e- \u003cb\u003eOprah Daily\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"In  depicting the fleeting flow of life, Kuebler aptly conveys the  quickness with which situations can develop and take on their own  momentum. How easy it is to lose touch with someone, to miss out on  things ... Kuebler succeeds in  capturing the rhythms of small-town life, and her peculiar style — each  sentence is an island unto itself, separated from its neighbors by a  full break — seems to imply that the reader should take a deep breath  between each thought.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e- The Boston Globe\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"This powerful debut is a subtle and beautiful story about the  interlocking relationships among the residents of a small town out of  Sherwood Anderson or Thornton Wilder—but with a very contemporary set of  problems … By turns sexy, shocking, and wistful, this coruscating debut  conveys the hopes, the sadness, and the secrets of a whole great world.  Told in a vivid style of complete distinction, the novel has a magic  and a momentum all its own, giving a look into the aching, silent heart  of America.\" - \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eRead Between the Spines\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Kuebler’s prose is visual, astute, and rich. Family drama, mystery, and subtle foreshadowing carry readers headlong to the conclusion. A novel for readers who relish a sense of place, quirky characters, and intertwined stories ... Featuring many teen characters, this will be of interest for its coming-of-age topics, including friend groups, parental control, and romance.\"\u003ci\u003e - \u003cb\u003eBooklist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Kuebler’s skillful, minimalist prose carries this small-town story from tranquil beginning to perilous end. An intricate, slow-burning patchwork of a debut novel.\" - \u003cb\u003eSTARRED review, \u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I've spent my life in towns like this, and so so much rings true—hard, sweet, right.\"\u003cb\u003e —Bill McKibben, author \u003ci\u003eRadio Free Vermont\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Kuebler deftly weaves multiple perspectives into a tapestry showing one bittersweet year in the collective life of a small northeastern town. Her wonderful characters, beautiful landscapes, and portrait of rural life will stay with me.\" \u003cb\u003e—Lydia Kiesling, author of \u003ci\u003eMobility\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Carolyn Kuebler’s  superb ensemble narrative features post office clerks and recluses,  yearning teens and missionary parents, budding criminals and trusts  funders who all inhabit a beautiful, struggling Vermont  town. Part of Kuebler’s magic is that she offers  no easy answers to this question, and leaves you pondering instead what  will happen to these people, and what it takes  for our rural communities to thrive and endure.\" \u003cu\u003e \u003c\/u\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Maria Hummel, author of \u003ci\u003e Goldenseal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"A true-to-life, richly detailed American tale in the tradition of   Sherwood Anderson, Willa Cather, and Thornton Wilder. Kuebler’s genius as a  writer is to make  readers believe that the harrowing story of  Glenville, Vermont is both  their own and one essential for our time.\"  \u003cb\u003e—Michael Collier, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Wild Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eCarolyn Kuebler was a co-founder of the literary journal\u003ci\u003e Rain Taxi \u003c\/i\u003eand is now the editor of the award-winning \u003ci\u003eNew England Review. \u003c\/i\u003eHer stories and essays have been published in \u003ci\u003eThe Common\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eColorado Review\u003c\/i\u003e, among others, and “Wildflower Season,” published in \u003ci\u003eThe Massachusetts Review\u003c\/i\u003e, won the 2022 John Burroughs Award for Nature Essays. She lives in Middlebury, Vermont, where she enjoys bird-watching and cross-country skiing. \u003ci\u003eLiquid, Fragile, Perishable\u003c\/i\u003e is her first novel.If she can walk to the supermarket and back, three miles down, three miles up, then she can do without the car.  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Nell stops to rest where the trail meets the road, where the road curves from the mountain into town.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The old house is still there by the river. She’s looking at it from the other side now, at the yard, the porch, the place she used to live.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The back porch is bare but for a blue recycling bin, upside down.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A pair of mallards sleeps in a patch of sun on the bank. Heads tucked into feathers, unmoving.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It’s spring now, and all the rivers are rushing. Brown with white caps, foam and branches swirling beneath the bridge. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The rivers are rushing, but not Nell. No reason to hurry.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She will sit here a while, on a rock in the sun.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The car can stay up at her place until she decides to fix it. Seven hundred and change is more than it’s worth to her now.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Another spring without a job, and now she’ll do without a car too.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e See, I am doing this, walking to the supermarket. Resting in the sun, on a rock, by the river.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Of course everything is easier with a little sun. With the smell of mud, warming and rising.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e What’s possible in May is more than you can expect for January, even a warm January, like this year. The year before that too. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She looks out to the old house now, its backyard stretching from the porch to the riverbank.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It was too close to the river, Dad always said, but they lived there anyway. All six of them, for so many years, until one by one they left.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She’d stand there on the bank with the binoculars, after Mom died. See that, Nell? he’d say, do you see them?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The green herons were the most difficult to find, their squat bodies, their ugly sounds. Not like a heron at all, she’d say. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She did the best she could for him, though. Scanning the reeds and treetops, closing her eyes to listen. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And later she knew what he needed before he asked.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A heating pad, a cup of tea. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But he’s gone now too. Dead and gone. Some words toll like bells.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Like the bells on the hour that always rang, that still ring, if you stop in the town long enough to listen.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She didn’t think she’d live more than a minute without Laura, and yet here she is.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Thirty years later. Thirty years longer.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Her sister Laura who was first at everything, afraid of nothing, till they found her, broken, on the rocks below. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Even now, Laura precedes every moment.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Or is Nell exaggerating?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Certainly she goes for hours, days even, without thinking of her. Thirty years now. Thirty-one if you count that first year.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She doesn’t count that first year. She can’t count what she doesn’t remember. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The winter was long and gray but Nell can breathe in the smell of spring now, the smell of wet, which is the smell of life, which just keeps going.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A fisherman steps into the river, all in brown. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e So quiet, like a deer coming out for a drink. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Nell is like a deer today too, coming out of the woods by the river. Quiet, disturbing nothing, in need of nobody.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e If she could disappear back into the woods again like that, she would.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But there’s a small list in her pocket of everything she needs. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Flour. Canned food to last. It will be heavy.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She still has applesauce from last fall. A ten-pound block of cheese getting smaller. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Little by little she’s finding what she can do without. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The fisherman steps in deeper, and out goes a ribbon of line.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The shadow of a cloud lifts from the grass across the river. The fishing line swoops and glitters. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She could stay here forever, with the sunshine pressing through her hair, the cool of the rock through her jeans. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But how long will it be, really?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A half hour maybe. Then the sun will shift and she’ll get going. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It’s all she has to do today, to get back before dark, three miles down, three miles up. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A duck lifts its head and shakes its neck, its wings. Both the ducks now, flapping in the sun.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Nell will get moving too. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Across the bridge, through town, and out on the highway to Shaw’s. She’ll walk along the shoulder. It’s not so far.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She can carry her pack. Her legs are strong and she has more time than she needs.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e **\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e You can’t open a plate-glass window, so Jeanne props the door.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Ah, if only they’d call a holiday on the first real day of sun! They have holidays for everything else around here. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The sun is nearly hot and yet it’s just the start of May. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It’s a treat, such a gift—free heat for everyone! Even for people who never pay their bills. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e From the look of things, LeBeau’s not paying. You can barely fit another thing in his box. Another final notice.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Nothing’s every quite final for the LeBeaus, though. They’ve been here forever and forever they’ll stay.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Today Jeanne is standing at the counter. It’s better than sitting, they say. Sitting is the new smoking.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Jeanne never smoked. Not cigarettes, anyway. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It was the seventies back then—what do you expect? Yes, she used to be quite a peach, smoking grass in her hippie skirts, hair down to there.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They don’t call it grass anymore, though, do they? The kids. Smoking a blunt, her sons would say. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Not that her sons ever really went in for that stuff. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Jeanne opens \u003ci\u003eSummer’s Parade\u003c\/i\u003e just below the counter. It’s always a game of will they do it, or won’t they, in these books. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Or more like when, because it always works out in the end. The characters are always so young, so good-looking. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Bob would tease her. What, you don’t get enough at home?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He’d tell her to read something better. You’re smart, he’d say. You could get a degree.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e When did he stop saying that? \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Both of them too tired now from working all these years. Raising kids. The whole nine yards.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Their boys both have degrees now. Kevin and Danny with their jobs up in Kingsbury. Jobs and wives.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Yes, Jeanne did okay by her boys. Didn’t need a degree for that. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e No reason she can’t just read whatever she wants now. Though it’s taking its sweet time, this book.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e People are really coming out of the woodwork today. The young ones already in T-shirts and shorts. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Jeanne doesn’t know the little ones anymore. Now she mostly knows the old-timers.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Of course she knows Nell Castleton. Walking by with an old metal-frame backpack. God knows where she must’ve dug that thing up from. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Everyone knows the Castleton family. One of them went to Harvard. Maybe Yale? One of them died in a hiking accident out West.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e No, Jeanne doesn’t really know them. She can count on her fingers the people she really knows anymore.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Apart from the mail they get. One for you, one for you. Day after day the bills that come, the cards and letters less and less. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Such a waste to be at work on a day like this! She could be home cleaning out the garage at least. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e All those old baby clothes. The kids’ art projects from way back when.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Sometimes it’s like she’s saving all this junk just for the mice to nest in. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Well, mice have families too. They have to sleep somewhere.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e With the door open like this, Jeanne can’t help but look up every time a car goes by. A truck now, grinding its gears at the stoplight. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A heavy bass thumps from a car with the windows down. Since time immemorial kids in cars blast their music. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Jeanne used to blast music. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Still does, now and then, back on Chubb Road with no-one around but the deer and the skunks. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e There’s always that sudden quiet when she turns off the ignition. “Silence descends.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She must’ve read that in her book, though really she should be reading the new regulations. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She read them once but has forgotten. Who can remember stuff like that?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e If only she hadn’t eaten her lunch so early. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She shifts from one foot to the other. Standing is no better than sitting if you lean like this. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Give me a break, she says. I’m old. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A breeze comes in from the door and she closes her eyes. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But not really. I’m not old when I close my eyes. Not when it’s May.","brand":"Melville House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302937317605,"sku":"NP9781685891091","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781685891091.jpg?v=1767731502","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/liquid-fragile-perishable-isbn-9781685891091","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}