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Shop nowMs. Hempel Chronicles
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Learn moreMs. Beatrice Hempel, a seventh-grade teacher, is new to teaching, new to the school, newly engaged, and newly bereft of her devoted father. Overwhelmed by her newness, she struggles to figure out what is expected of her in life and at work. Is it acceptable to introduce swear words to the English curriculum, enlist students to write their own report cards, or bring up personal experiences while teaching a sex education class?
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum finds characters at their most vulnerable and then explores those precarious moments in sharp, graceful prose. This is a journey down the rabbit hole to the wonderland of middle school, memory, daydreaming, and the extraordinary business of growing up.
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of the novels Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tin House, The Best American Short Stories, and the O. Henry Prize Stories. The recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Fellowship, she was named one of “20 Under 40” fiction writers by the New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles.
Tavia Gilbert has recorded hundreds of titles across a wide span of genres, including Erica Spindler, romantic thrillers; John Scalzi, science fiction; and Jeanienne Frost, fantasy. She has received four Audie nominations and has won three AudioFile Earphones Awards for the titles The Obituary Writer, Sing Them Home, and The Day of the Pelican. In addition to voice acting, Gilbert is an accomplished producer, singer, and theater actor.
Reviews
“Utterly winning…[Bynum] creates a seamless, intuitive novel of short stories…Each is a small gorgeous thing on its own, but the wise and whimsical Ms. Hempel Chronicles gives them their collective due, deploying them on a broader canvas, their colors more layered, their impact more powerful.”
“When I opened this utterly charming novel, I fell in love with it.”
“A marvelous new book…Each of these eight stories dazzles on its own terms; all together they create a stunning portrait of an unforgettable character at a crossroads.”
“Bynum’s first novel, the dreamlike Madeleine is Sleeping, was a finalist for the National Book Award, but it’s her second book that’s the real miracle…With each chapter, Bynum adds to her portrait of Ms. Hempel, quietly offering us small jewels of information that transform her into a complex and disarming character…Bynum is an inventive writer with talent to spare.”
“Teachers, take note: You’ve got an articulate new advocate in novelist Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. Bynum’s Ms. Hempel Chronicles is not only a warmhearted novel-in-stories about a young seventh-grade teacher navigating the final passage to her own adulthood even as she ushers her students through the tricky narrows of adolescence; it is also a testament to how hard—and important—the work of teaching is.”
“A National Book Award finalist in 2004, Bynum returns with an intricate and absorbing collection of eight interconnected stories about Beatrice Hempel, a middle school English teacher…Bynum’s sympathy for her protagonist runs deep, and even the slightest of events comes across as achingly real and, sometimes, even profound. Bynum writes with great acuity, and the emotional undercurrents in this sharp take on coming-of-age and growing up will move readers in unexpected ways.”
“[Gilbert’s] performance is perfectly suited to the writing…For anyone who has worked with or taught young adolescents, this is a delicious glimpse into life from their point of view.”
“Bynum’s second novel provides a narrative voice as unique and engaging as that in her award-winning debut, Madeleine Is Sleeping (2004)…Rather than focus on the major events of Ms. Hempel’s current life, including a broken engagement and the death of her father, Bynum instead uses these as a net to cradle smaller, more telling moments—a troublemaker buried in sand on class “beach day,” a magic routine at the talent show, dancing with colleagues at happy hour. Bynum dares to put much stock in these small moments and in the dreamy perspective of her heroine, and the result is charming without being quirky. This tightly composed novel favors character over a traditional narrative…The attention to detail is spectacular.”
“The idea that we’re all just aging, idiosyncratic children snatching at happiness is central to Ms. Hempel Chronicles, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s gently, deeply affecting second novel…Ms. Hempel’s consciousness is a joy to inhabit.”
“Subtle, dazzling…There is so much elliptical richness in the multifaceted character of Ms. Hempel that every chapter in this short, taut novel brings revelation…No sign of sophmore slump in this masterful illumination of character.”
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