TYPORAMA
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All information in this post is courtesy of Kristen Ludwigsen of MindBuck Media Book Publicity.
"Darby takes on loss and grief with a subtle wisdom. Hers is a narrative for our times." - Afaa M. Weaver, author of A Fire in the Hills
"Jane Darby's taut novel speaks to the depths of life-altering loss and the power of the human spirit to transform it. All That Remains will keep you on the edge of your seat and break your heart." - Tom Lagasse, author and poet
"All That Remains explodes off the page with domestic tension. Darby delivers a richly slanted view of contemporary American life." - Bill Ratner, author of Fear of Fish
"Darby weaves her story in clear and lyrically honed prose reminiscent of Updike." - Davyne Verstandig, poet and teacher
"Jane Darby is a master storyteller. I knew I was in good hands from page one." - Andy Christie, The Moth Radio Hour
EXCERPT OF ALL THAT REMAINS:
All That Remains - Jane Darby 1 “I wouldn't wait until the weekend. Why not go up this afternoon? By yourself.” Richard stirred cream into his coffee and wiped the spoon clean with a paper napkin. "What do you think?" “Yes,” Anna said, trying to plumb this peace offering. “I could do that.” “You said you wanted to have some time alone. It will be good for you. Fresh air. Take a walk in the woods. That’s why we bought the place. A little peace and quiet, no?” He smiled. “You can get started on the garden." Anna sipped her coffee, wincing at the heat. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to get rid of her. Last night’s blow-out had ended in retreat: he, to the bedroom and she, to Ben's old room, now a den. Curled up on the divan, she listened to the sounds of Richard getting ready for bed: click of a light switch, rush of water in the sink, sounds of an intimate, shared life, so maddeningly calm and deliberate that each was another stone in the wall rising between them. But here at breakfast with sunlight streaming through the window and coffee cooling in their mugs, civility had returned and along with it, a fragile truce. "Yes," she repeated. "I could do that." "Good. I'm working late tonight anyway. I'll catch a train Friday evening. You'll pick me up at the station?" He smiled at her, eyebrows raised as if there were any question. "Of course." It wasn’t until she was driving up the Palisades that she realized Richard was right. The city had barely dropped away, and already she felt a lift in spirits. Trees flashed by, still winter-naked though some were shot with early sprays of green. Yellow forsythia bloomed along the side of the road. Up the rise and around the bend, she passed a small lake tucked into the landscape like a secret. Farther up, the road cut past cliffs glistening with the spring thaw. The ascent peaked and suddenly below her: a Walmart. A Chuck E. Cheese. More stores under All That Remains - Jane Darby construction, wrapped in a white membrane with the big, blue words Tyvek, Tyvek, Tyvek. All of this surrounded by a vast parking lot with rows and rows of cars where crops once grew. She needed a shovel. If she was going to cut sod and build a fence for the garden, she would need a shovel. And some chicken wire. Stakes for fence posts. Work gloves. She tried to think it through, to cast her mind ahead to what might be needed. Without warning, bile rose to her mouth and she gasped. What might be needed. She pressed her lips together and swallowed the thought whole. Pay attention. Needle-nosed pliers with a built-in wire cutter. She took the exit to the Walmart. The vastness of the store was a shock after the cramped aisles of Manhattan markets. Anna pushed a cart that could house a family of four past a bin of Easter candy marked half-off. Over the loudspeaker a voice squawked that chicken tenders were buy-one-get-one-free in the frozen food section. Everyone was in a state of fatigued awe. Anna watched a worn-out couple in their late twenties worry each other over whether they should put a wide-screen TV on layaway. A toddler with a snot-crusted nose and raw upper lip rocked and keened in the child’s seat of the cart while a five-year-old boy or girl – Anna wasn’t sure with that haircut – pulled on the woman’s arm, chanting indecipherable demands. Suddenly, the man swung his head around to the child. “Tyler, if you don’t shut up, I’ll give you something to shut up about.” Anna looked away. The selection in Gardening Supplies was slim; it was so early in the season. There were some shovels and hand tools. An entire row was devoted to poisons for pests. If she had wanted to, she could’ve bought a reflective blue sphere perched on a Grecian pedestal made out of durable plastic. She couldn't believe they didn't sell chicken wire. At least they had deer netting. She All That Remains - Jane Darby angled a couple of rolls into her cart. On her way out of the store, she paused by the vending machines. When Ben was little, it had been impossible to pass them without stopping. They would be walking down Broadway, in a hurry, as usual, to get him to school and her to work, and there the vending machines would be, banked against the storefront of a deli or a news shop. Without warning, Ben would dart over and start fiddling with the mechanisms. Mom, can I have a quarter? No, Ben. Come on. C’mon, Mom. Please. Just one. What is it you want? That. That plastic thing. Ben, it’s nothing. It’s junk. It's landfill. It’s a thing, Mom! He was always a sucker for The Claw, a glassed-in chamber filled with stuffed animals, bouncy balls, and cheap digital watches that worked for about five minutes. For a dollar a pop, you could guide a three-fingered mechanical hand to lower, grasp, and retrieve whatever your heart desired. Ben always pestered her for that one. She tried to tell him. She even let him do it once to show him it was nothing but a cheat. But out of sheer, dumb luck he managed to pull up a stuffed something, a green alien with huge almond-shaped eyes that glowed in the dark. From that day on, he was hooked. Anna pushed her cart over to The Claw. Of course, there was nothing in it she wanted, but she fished some quarters from her coat pocket and dropped them into the slot. The chamber lit All That Remains - Jane Darby up as a plinkity rendition of Under the Sea buzzed through the speakers. She studied the jumble of plush fur and plastic, steered the claw over to a purple Teddy bear, fine-tuned the positioning, and pushed the button. The claw descended over the bear’s head and pulled up. The mechanism had no more strength in it than an old woman’s arthritic hand. The fingers slipped over the bear and returned home empty-handed. What had she expected? It was night by the time Anna pulled up to the house. The footpath to the porch was so dark and unfamiliar that she had to toe her way along the flagstone and up the broad wooden steps leading to the door. She felt with her fingers for the lock and guided her key into it. Entry by Braille, she thought as she pushed against the heavy door and pawed the wall to switch on the lights. It was an old house, an Adirondack-style hunter’s lodge built in the 1930s with a stone fireplace, vaulted ceilings, exposed beams and rafters, and plenty of taxidermy left by the previous owner. A moose’s head, mangy with age, hung high over the hearth. From the moment he saw it, Richard had fallen in love with the house with its long, gravel driveway and the wooded hills that surrounded it. “A real find,” he whispered to Anna when the realtor turned her back. “The real thing.” Once it was theirs, he took to calling it “The Lodge,” or, when he was feeling particularly grand, “The Manor.” Anna referred to it as The House of Heads, to which Richard always admonished, "Don’t be ugly." It was grand and it was the real thing, but it was also terribly gloomy. The timbered walls absorbed light. From the shadows, deer looked down with glass eyes empty of life. A scent of musty, old fur and wood filled the air. Anna set her bags by the sofa and flicked on as many lamps as she could find, but still the room felt dark and heavy. A tomb. She decided to light a fire. There was plenty of firewood; the caretaker had seen to that. But Anna, a city-dweller for All That Remains - Jane Darby most of her life, hadn’t paid attention when Richard lit their first fire several weeks ago. She had been sitting right in that armchair, drifting off as usual, sinking herself with her thoughts. She could not shake her astonishment that life continued. Even after all this time – more than a year - something in her refused to understand it. How was it possible that she could sit in an armchair and watch her husband fumble about with matches? How was it possible that when he struck the match, it actually lit? Shouldn’t the world stop? Shouldn’t the laws of nature be suspended? How could a man who had lost his only child still manage to light a fire? Anna had been married to Richard for twenty-five years, yet she did not understand him. He possessed the gift of taking life in stride, while she took each new blow as if it might be her last. Even through the initial shock of the phone call, the subdued voice of a stranger on the other end, the interminable drive to Philadelphia, the awful sight of Ben in the morgue – still and waxy, not really Ben at all, more the absence of Ben – through all of that, Richard had held it together. And in the days that followed, he made the calls, the arrangements; he spoke at the memorial service, while Anna simply shut down. A couple of weeks after the service when there was nothing left to do, Anna found Richard lying in bed, pulled into a tight fetal curl. She lay down next to him, cupped his back with her body, and snaked her arm around his belly and up his chest. But he was stone: silent and cold.
ABOUT ALL THAT REMAINS:
A couple is determined to get on with their lives, but as they try to cope with the loss of their only child, the different ways in which they grieve threatens to tear them apart.
Anna and Richard, a long-married Manhattan couple, lost their adult son and only child to a violent mugging a year ago.
Time heals nothing.
As they struggle to navigate the very different ways in which they grieve their loss, they meet two young people who are fighting their own demons.
Over the course of a shattering weekend, Anna and Richard face devastating secrets that have simmered beneath the surface of their marriage and threaten to tear their lives apart.
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