A New and Glorious Life

I can't believe it took me six years to find this book. I didn't "find" it, either; my next-door neighbor handed it to me, saying he thought it was the sort of thing I'd like. (Don't know what this says about me. Maybe he thought because I'm an actor, I'm a romantic sort.) In any case, this was the best book I've read in a long, long time. It's damn hard to find contemporary writing that plumbs the human heart the way the best writers of an earlier time did. Think of early Saul Bellow, or Bernard Malamud. Think, for that matter, of Henry James--but with more feeling. Think Chekhov. I've spent a lot of time with Chekhov, so I'm not just throwing his name around. Think: hearts and minds, not STUFF, like so many of today's writers write about. If you care more about how people think and what they feel, and how and why they love, than you do about the "stuff" they do--then you'll love this book, too. Also recommended: Alice Munro's Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Claire Messud's The Hunters and The Last Life Tillie Olsen's Tell Me A Riddle Lore Segal's Her Last American (alas, out of print!!! but maybe someone will reprint?) and see all of the above, if you haven't read them before

This was a terrifically fun book to read. I was only sorry that there were not more tales included in it. The puzzle that faces Auslander in the first story is one that I have put to friends ever since I read it. This has produced some fascinating discussions! The other stories are just as interesting and the entire book is wonderful, insightful and intriguing. I have given several as gifts and I always get rave reviews from the recipients.

In A New and Glorious Life Michelle Herman responds in her own inimical way to the via negativa. Through three novellas she explores the ethical dilemmas of existence. When Auslander (the main character in the first) sees in her mind "the bundle of poems secured by a rubber band, surrounded by the accumulated clutter of years: stacks of letters; shoeboxes full of photographs, postcards, canceled checks; spiral-bound notebooks dating back to graduate school," she is considering the honor that must be paid to the poet whose work she is considering translating, to the testament the poet has left behind. Auslander (a stranger to the poet and her work) weighs her obligation to that testament of life and work. In "A New and Glorious Life," the central novella of the book, Herman explores the nature of creativity and sexuality, the integral tie between the two and the pull on each of our lives of Logos and Eros. In "Hope Among Men" Herman explores the relationship of love and hope with insights into the dark side of both.Herman does not assert that we will be successful in our attempts to counter the via negativa. But, oh, her characters seem to say, how we try, how we must. As she has said elsewhere, "I am interested in the conflicts that arise between responsibility to oneself and to those one loves." Through the three novellas in this collection she explores the interior process that ultimately lies at the core of what matters. It is the way we wend our way through the actions of our lives with an awareness of the ethical dilemmas that life presents us. It is how we move toward understanding--and what more could we hope for as we move forward, one would hope, ultimately with wisdom. It is that wisdom that Herman offers.--Mary L. Tabor

A New and Glorious Life is three novellas all about love and life, and contemporary relationships. The collection is a delicious feast leaving the reader wanting more more more... Each novella provokes the mind and stirs the heart; each is written superbly with depth and warmth, insight and humor. The characters and their stories come alive and stay with you long after the book is finished.

Each of these three novellas is fascinating in itself; taken together they comprise a work of depth and resonance. The characters are depicted affectionately and humorously, yet with unrelenting clearsightedness. The most successful novella, in my opinion, is "Hope Among Men," which reads initially like light comedy, but offers the reader a loopily hopeful vision of modern romantic life that feels both true and profound.