Self Storage

Gayle Brandeis' novel, Self Storage, shares a similar quality to her first novel, The Book of Dead Birds, VISION...and that vision is conveyed through her characters and the stories on the page. This is a writer to read slowly and carefully, as you'd eat a delicious meal. I'd also recommend her craft book, Fruitflesh- which I recommend to my students at Antioch University, Los Angeles...Gayle was my student there, and from the first page I knew I'd be writing this review one day...BRAVA, Gayle... Alma Luz VillanuevaSoft Chaos

Self Storage is about self exploration and discovering what makes you say YES to life. The story is layered on deeply flawed characters who don't know where their source of joy is, and is movingly woven together with lines from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself". Gayle Brandeis' characters, and the world she has created, work their way through the book with purposeful discord that creates its own energy and draws the reader in. Sometimes feeling compassion for them, sometimes frustration, but always feeling them - and that makes these characters real. This book is getting a lot of important coverage because it addresses racial discrimination, profiling, our hyper-security focused culture, and the need for people to realize we are all human beings and desperately need to move past our fear and discord and find what brings us all together and say YES to ourselves and the world we live in. Self Storage is a delight to read, and I highly recommend it.

At times as lyrical as the protagonist's muse Walt Whitman, Self Storage reminds us that we have the power to live affirmatively and discover our own Song. Gayle Brandeis has written a novel that is as compelling as it is rollicking good fun. Yes!

Self Storage is a wonderful blend of soul searching, hot topic political issues, and colorful words. This novel contains true-to-life, maybe-it-could-happen events starting with Flan's search of what makes her say YES, to the treachrous expriences of motherhood, married life that is on the breaking point and its recovery, to the issue of 9/11. It is a novel, a book that was written to wisk you off into far off places, even if that place is just down the street (as I live in Riverside, CA, I was totally tickled by the setting), or that distant place inside your head. Mrs. Brandeis writes beautifully, her words weaving a story, while laying out the aforementioned issues in a very neutral manner, letting the readers form their own opinions, letting them do their own soul searching, yet still having her own thoughts, her wisdom and knowledge weaved into the words letting you know exactly how she feels. I recommend this book to EVERYone and I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.

Gayle Brandeis is a rare contemporary American novelist. She loves her characters dearly, understands their fears and needs, but is just not content to limit them to their social circles, local communities and everyday concerns. At the same time, she gives them honest opportunities to transcend. This book is superb and her most urgent so far. With witty dialogue and graceful prose, she explores what it means to be an American, and to be secure in America, post 9/11, through the pursuits of Flan, a most unassuming and engaging hero in mufti, who finds herself on the frontline in her suburban neighbourhood. What makes Fran's story so subversive is that she alters your awareness and sense of possibility using a great deal of kindness.