Something Rising (Light and Swift)

by Haven Kimmel

Book Overview

Cassie Claiborne's world is riddled with problems beyond her control: her hard-living, pool-shooting father has another wife; her mother can't seem to move herself mentally away from the kitchen window; and her sister Belle is a tempest of fragility and brilliance. Frustrated by her inability to care for so many, Cassie finds in the local pool hall an oasis of green felt where she can master objects and restrain her emotions. As Cassie grows up, she...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743247779
• ISBN13: 9780743247771
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Who says small town life isn't epic? Certainly not Haven Kimmel.

This is the second Haven Kimmel novel I've read, and I have to say I'm hooked. It's her characters. You'd be lucky to be a Haven Kimmel character. You might work in a tiny library and spend your life grieving the man who left you for a woman with a prior claim. You might never leave your kitchen table out of a fear of germs. You might be graceful, rock-hard pool hustler with a failing Mazda truck and a disputed cue. Whatever you are, you will be as deeply engaged in the world of ideas as any professor. I love this. These people think and they read and make up sort of a lost tribe of superior intellects living in Midwestern diaspora. Kimmel does have a tendency to invest her characters with a slightly incredible degree of lean, wolfen physical grace and beauty, but you know, I can forgive that because these people are so fun to read.

Everybody into the pool

This is not a novel about pool, but it does revolve around a young woman's only connection to her charming but absent father: billiards. This compelling story is stuffed with characters that you simply cant get enough of: Puck, BuenaVista, and of course Cassie herself and her family of women. Her sister Belle is going one way -- toward success and accomplishment? - her mother is a Greek tragic figure with a pack of Camels and a heart that still understands love -- and Cassie goesout into the world to kick a little ___. Well done and so magical to enter her world, Kimmel has triumphed here with exquisite grace and plenty of humor.

Cassie Rises to the top

Cassie is the kind of protagonist about whom young women need to read. She is strong, brave, daring, and loyal. Those qualities add up to an extraordinarily readable story. The supporting cast of characters are all interesting, and may well exist next door to any of us. I was cheering for Cassie all the way.

Willa Cather meets Pat Conroy..

It's been a long time since I've read a book as good as Something Rising. What strikes me as immediately pleasant and refreshing is the fact that it has a timeless quality - the small towns, the simple lives, the beauty of a good story well told. There are no ambitious husband-seeking female characters, no thinly veiled and politically correct "messages", no references to designer clothing or celebrities. Her simple style is reminiscent of Willa Cather, yet the bursts of the human comedy and the unique yet 'ordinary people' characters remind me of how Pat Conroy hooks in a reader. Yet Kimmel's voiceis her own and it shines with an elegant subtlety, her dialogue is flawless. Characetsr liek BuenaVisa and Puck and Belle keep this book firmly on the sacred groundof Truth. Laura has many of the best lines and the kind of elder wisdom that is rarely seen in today's novels. It is simply and extraordinary book and I hope it gets the recognition it so richly deserves.

Haven Kimmel is a national treasure

Her first book Zippy was a Today Show pick, but it is this novel which shines brightest in what is sure to be a long and brilliant career. Something Rising is studded with the kind of characters that seem to emerge whole from the pages: Puck, Jimmy, and of course Cassie are so real one feels they could touch them -- and we in the reading are surely touched. Cassie's redemption is a fierce will and the gift her father passed along: pool (billiards to the brits). The story is so compelling and funny and sad that it briskly engulfs the reader in a tide of lyrical bliss. Laura's speech about the Holiness of Love is surely one of the finest to ever grace my eyes. The novel is a mystery as well, careening through some agile plots twists until its grand finale. Brilliant, absorbing, tender, and uniquely satisfying, Ms. Kimmel has triumphed again.