The Truth about Celia

The Truth About Celia pulled me away from chores and kept me up past my bedtime -- it was simply impossible to put down. Brockmeier carried me into the mystical land of grief and explored what is beyond the edge of the mind. Best of all, he accomplished this with a careful collection of beautiful words. I'll read this one again and again, and I've already ordered a copy to loan to friends. Well done Mr. Brockmeier.

This novel is difficult to describe, it's almost a set of inter-related short stories. And yet, each unique chapter informs the others in such away that the whole is profoundly moving. This is one of those rare books that should be read in a short period of time if possible, because the details you retain, the connections you make, are simply amazing. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it, it's that rich. On top of that, it's just achingly beautifully written. One of the best books I read last year, I can't recommend it enough.

Each piece perfect in and of itself, they fit together into something even more wonderful. One of my favorite books this year.

I cannot say that I know what it is like to lose a child, however, Kevin Brockmeier's novel engulfs the pain and heartache of a father who has lost his daughter. Brockmeier's delicate and beautifully written sentences led me to cry and laugh...and not stop reading until I finished. Wonderful book.

No book published this year has moved me as deeply as The Truth About Celia. Neither have I read another book so greedily, staying up well into the night until, as Brockmeier himself writes, I became "nothing but a pair of eyes and a bare reacting heart." Kevin Brockmeier is a writer with perfect pitch. His instincts are unerring and his sentences unfold beautifully, with a precision I haven't experienced since A River Runs Through It or Brad Watson's Last Days of the Dog Men. Even at its most unorthodox (particularly in a section entitled "Faces, and How They Look from Behind," in which point-of-view shifts rapidly from person to person, like a baton in a relay race), Brockmeier never sounds a false note. Similarly, the short fantasy pieces interposed throughout the text (Christopher, Celia's father, is a writer of fantasy and science fiction) enhance rather than obscure the narrative, effectively serving as an outlet for Christopher's anguish after his daughter's disappearance -- a way, however temporary, of inhabiting a world in which his child is not lost to him. Brockmeier has already amassed a variety of awards for his short fiction, including a first-place O. Henry prize and inclusion in The Best American Short Stories anthology. If there is any justice in the book world, The Truth About Celia will pick up at least one of the major American literary awards next year and bring Kevin Brockmeier the wider audience he deserves.