Haven Kimmel Books In Order

The Solace of Leaving Early

A heart rending story of the lives of a few inhabitants of a small American town and the massive effect of one very violent death Langston Braverman has just walked out on her PhD oral exams and returned home to Haddington, Indiana in a fragile emotional state. She retreats to her parents’ attic, unsure what to do with the summer or the rest of her life, but with vague plans to write the great American novel. But it’s hot, and she is distracted beyond capacity to think by the banality of this small town home she has returned to, and plunged deep in the trauma of a self imposed existential dilemma from which not even news of the death of her childhood best friend, Alice, can rouse her. A few houses down Plum Street, Amos Townsend, the local preacher, is suffering from a crippling crisis of faith, wondering how he can continue in the role of spiritual leader of this community. Traumatised by Alice’s violent death, guilt ridden over his inability to prevent it, he feels a responsibility for the welfare of Alice’s two suddenly orphaned young girls, altered beyond recognition from the shock of having witnessed the bloody end to their parents’ marriage. Langston’s mother, meanwhile, has forced her into the role of carer, and the developing relationship between the damaged children, and these two slightly hopeless adults helps all four embark on a process of recovery and redemption that is heartbreakingly poignant and utterly convincing. The Solace of Leaving Early is a remarkable novel generous, warm hearted, smart and ambitious. It is a novel of people and ideas, of family ties, and of how those ties endure for better or worse, of grief and love, of leaving home and returning, of the overwhelming secrets that rest quietly within us. It is so sweet and smart, it’s a present.

Something Rising (Light and Swift)

In her first two books, Haven Kimmel claimed her spot on the literary scene surprising readers with her memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, and winning an outpouring of critical acclaim for her first novel, The Solace of Leaving Early. Now, in her second novel, she brings to the page a hero*ine’s tireless quest for truth, love, justice, and the perfect game of 9 ball. Cassie Claiborne’s world is riddled with problems beyond her control: her hard living, pool shooting father has another wife; her stoic, long suffering mother is incapable of moving herself mentally away from the kitchen window; her sister Belle is a tempest of fragility and brilliance; her closest friends, Puck and Emmy, are adolescent harbingers of their own doomed futures. Frustrated by her inability to care deeply enough for so many troubled souls, Cassie finds in the local pool hall an oasis of green felt where she can master objects and restrain her emotions. As Cassie grows from a quietly complex girl into a headstrong young woman, she takes on the thankless role of family provider by working odd jobs and hustling pool. All the while, she keeps her eye on the ultimate prize: wringing suitable justice out of past wrongs and freeing herself from the inertia that is her life. In this ultimately uplifting story, Haven Kimmel reaches deep into the hamstrung souls of her fictional corner of Indiana. Remarkable for its tough tenderness, Something Rising (Light and Swift) is an astonishing work of pure heartbreak.

The Used World

‘It was mid December in Jonah, Indiana, a place where Fate can be decided by the weather, and a storm was gathering overhead.’ So Haven Kimmel, bestselling author of A Girl Named Zippy, prepares us to enter The Used World a world where big hearts are frequently broken and sometimes repaired; where the newfangled and the old fashioned battle it out in daily encounters both large and small; where wondrous things unfold just beneath the surface of everyday life; and where the weather is certainly biblical and might just be prophetic.

Hazel Hunnicutt’s Used World Emporium is a sprawling antique store that is ‘the station at the end of the line for objects that sometimes appeared tricked into visiting there.’ Hazel, the proprietor, is in her sixties, and it’s a toss up as to whether she’s more attached to her mother or her cats. She’s also increasingly attached to her two employees: Claudia Modjeski freakishly tall, forty odd years old who might finally be undone by the extreme loneliness that’s dogged her all of her life; and Rebekah Shook, pushing thirty, still living in her fervently religious father’s home, and carrying the child of the man who recently broke her heart. The three women struggle separately and together, through relationships, religion, and work to find their place in this world. And it turns out that they are bound to each other not only by the past but also by the future, as not one but two babies enter their lives, turning their formerly used world brand new again.

Astonishing for what it reveals about the human capacity for both grace and mischief, The Used World forms a loose trilogy with Kimmel’s two previous novels, The Solace of Leaving Early and Something Rising Light and Swift. This is a book about all of America by way of a single midwestern town called Jonah, and the actual breathing histories going on as Indiana’s stark landscape is transformed by dying small town centers and proliferating big box stores and SUVs. It’s about generations of deception, anguish, and love, and the idiosyncratic ways spirituality plays out in individual lives. By turns wise and hilarious, tender and fierce, heartrending and inspiring, The Used World charts the many meanings of the place we call home.

Kaline Klattermaster’s Tree House

It’s easy to understand why wiggly Kaline Klattermaster wants to squirm away from his life: Already struggling with his inability to sit still or stay quiet, now his dad is gone and his mom won t say where. To escape the chaotic world of his mother s reign, Kaline thinks up a perfect hiding place an imaginary tree house complete with 100 puppies and two older brothers who give him advice. Like Joey Pigza in Jack Ganto s bestselling novels, Kaline has ADHD, making him all the more relatable to young readers, who will empathize with and cheer for him as Kaline finds the courage to leave the tree and face the real world.

Iodine

Haven Kimmel, the 1 New York Times bestselling author, has long attracted legions of fans for her insightful, humane portraits of outsiders struggling to find their place in the world. In Iodine, her fourth novel, Kimmel once again draws on her exceptional powers of observation and empathy, but this time she makes an exhilarating foray into psychological gothic territory with the electrifying story of a young woman emerging from layers of delusion, fantasy, and lies. With her astounding intelligence, fierce independence, and otherworldly lavender eyes, college senior Trace Pennington makes an indelible impression even as questions about her past and her true identity hover over every page.

From her earliest years, Trace turned away from her abusive mother toward her loving father. Within the twisty logic of abuse, her desperate love for him took on a romantic cast that persists to this day, though she’s had no contact with her family since she ran away from home years ago. Alone but for her beloved dog, she’s eked out an impoverished but functional existence, living in an abandoned house, putting herself through college, and astonishing her teachers with her genius and erudition. What they don’t know is that she leads a double life: thanks to forged documents, at school she is Ianthe Covington, a young woman with no past.

Trace’s singular life is upended when she and her literature professor fall in love. She tells him nothing about her life, and as it becomes apparent that he has his own dark secrets, she’s forced to face herself and her past. After recovering a horrific, long suppressed memory, Trace finally copes with the fallout from her brutal, bizarre childhood. Kimmel parcels out Trace’s strange, dark story in mesmerizing bits that obscure as much as they reveal, and keep the reader guessing until the end.

With Kimmel’s radiant imagination, lyrical prose, and vision of a bleak and fertile Midwest on full display, Iodine is a frightening and marvelous tale of life at the outer extremes of human experience. This unique portrait of the psychological effects of trauma is tantalizing, shocking, and ultimately hopeful.

Orville

A big, ugly dog is happy to meet a farmer and his wife who decide to give him a name and a home, but not so happy when they chain him to the barn. All Orville can do is bark to tell the world how unhappy he is, and the more he barks, the more he is left alone. But everything changes when Sally MacIntosh moves into the little house across the road and Orville falls in love. A beautifully crafted text that blends wry humor with the poignant twang of a country and western song is accompanied by dreamy, spare watercolor and ink illustrations for a fresh, original picture book that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt lonely or misunderstood.

A Girl Named Zippy

When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965 in Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed ‘Zippy’ for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards. To three year old Zippy, it made perfect sense to strike a bargain with her father to keep her baby bottle never mind that when she did, it was the first time she’d ever spoken. In her nonplussed family, Zippy has the perfect supporting cast: her beautiful yet dour brother, Danny, a seeker of the true faith; her sweetly sensible sister, Lindy, who wins the local beauty pageant; her mother, Delonda, who dispenses wisdom from the corner of the couch; and her father, Bob Jarvis, who never met a bet he didn’t like. Whether describing a serious case of chicken love, another episode with the evil Edythe across the street, or the night Zippy’s dad borrowed thirty six coon dogs and a raccoon to prove to the complaining neighbors just how quiet his two dogs were, Kimmel treats readers to a hero*ine who is wonderfully sweet and shy as she navigates the quirky adult world surrounding Zippy.

She Got Up Off the Couch

Picking up where A Girl Named Zippy left off, Haven Kimmel crafts a tender portrait of her mother, a modestly heroic woman who took the odds that life gave her and somehow managed to win. When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or ‘working.’ And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana. Increasingly frustrated with the limitations of her small town, married with children life, Delonda decides first to learn how to drive a car, even though she won t have access to one. Next, she applies to the local college, eventually graduating with honors at age 40. We happily follow Zippy from one story to another, but we know this is really her mother’s book: the poignant tale of a strong woman who found a way to save herself and set a proud example for her daughter.