A town of empty rooms

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Where to find it

North Carolina Collection (Wilson Library)

Call Number
C813 B458t
Status
In-Library Use Only
Item Note
Dustjacket.
Call Number
C813 B458t c. 2
Status
Available

Authors, etc.

Names:

Summary

Karen E. Bender burst on to the literary scene a decade ago with her luminous first novel, Like Normal People , which garnered remarkable acclaim.

A Town of Empty Rooms presents the story of Serena and Dan Shine, estranged from one another as they separately grieve over the recent loss of Serena's father and Dan's older brother. Serena's actions cause the couple and their two small children to be banished from New York City, and they settle in the only town that will offer Dan employment: Waring, North Carolina. There, in the Bible belt of America, Serena becomes enmeshed with the small Jewish congregation in town led by an esoteric rabbi, whose increasingly erratic behavior threatens the future of his flock. Dan and their young son are drawn into the Boy Scouts by their mysterious and vigilant neighbor, who may not have their best intentions at heart. Tensions accrue when matters of faith, identity, community, and family all fall into the crosshairs of contemporary, small-town America. A Town of Empty Rooms presents a fascinating insight into the lengths we will go to discover just where we belong.

Sample chapter

Excerpt from A Town of Empty Rooms There is, in finding your beloved, the belief that this person answers a question that resides in you, a question that you did not know has always lived inside you. Dan answered Serena's question--how can you move through the world while sometimes closing your eyes? She loved in Dan what seemed to be an endless hopefulness. She liked the way he seemed to believe in clichés; he seemed to believe in the goodness of the world when he grew up from a family that wanted to disregard him. It seemed so generous, this eagerness, so fearless in a way. She answered the question for Dan--how can you move through the world while allowing yourself to see everything in other people? He had loved the fact that she could not hide anything about herself and could spend large amounts of time talking about her fears, that she regarded the world with a clarity that he didn't; he admired that. He had spent his life trying to find people who would not surprise him at all. After their wedding, they drove, with the cavalier machismo of the newly married, all night to a flimsy, plastic motel by the highway just off the Delaware Memorial Bridge, a place they had chosen just because they were too tired to move. There was such a glorious naiveté in that drive, that rush in their rental car down I-95, by the rattling trucks, by the people hunched over the steering wheels, for the cool pure hope that, by finding each other, they had fled some basic sadness. They spent their marital night at a truck stop, the long, white beams from the headlights sweeping through the plain room, the trod-on blue carpet, the sharp odor of Lysol, the guttural grinding of the engines outside. She looked at him, sitting, naked, against the pine headboard, one knee bent; looking out at the semis lined up in the parking lot, and the headlights fell upon his face so that he looked as though he expected to be swallowed into them, into pure light. She moved toward him, wanting, too, to be brought into his longing. He looked at her, and he wanted to fall into her breasts, her thighs, the way she cupped her chin in her hand and peered into the darkness outside as though waiting to see something else come out of it. She loved his hope, and he loved her fear. They fell into each other, grateful for each other's arms and legs and lips and for what they could grab from each other, and they woke to the damp, sour sheets, the pink light of the sun into the shabby room, and she looked at him asleep beside her, and she felt that particular brief melting pleasure--she did not want to be anywhere else. The flaws were already sown, as they are with any union. Excerpted from A Town of Empty Rooms by Karen E. Bender All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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