Product Description

(20080827)

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #128790 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780151014965
• Condition: USED - LIKE NEW
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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. Ms. Hempel is the sort of teacher students adore, and despite feeling disenchanted with her job, she regards her students as intelligent, insightful and sometimes fascinating. Bynum seamlessly weaves stories of the teacher's childhood with the present—reminiscences about Beatrice's now deceased father and her relationship with her younger brother, Calvin—while simultaneously fleshing out the lives of Beatrice's impressionable students (they are in awe of the crassness of This Boy's Life). Though there isn't much in the way of plot, 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. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Bynum’s second novel provides a narrative voice as unique and engaging as that in her award-winning debut, Madeleine Is Sleeping (2004). Here we meet a twentysomething middle-school teacher full of both hope and insecurity on the brink of confident adulthood—an age Bynum renders as poignant as that of her students. 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, with one particularly wonderful chapter looking back on a teenage Ms. Hempel, locked in her room, listening to pirate radio, and having aimless conversations with prank callers. The attention to detail is spectacular. --Annie Tully

Review
"'A wonderful, practically magical writer' Curtis Sittenfeld 'Pure pleasure' Jonathan Franzen 'Beautiful... Deeply affecting.' Los Angeles Times 'Utterly charming' Washington Post 'Marvelous... Stunning... Unforgettable' San Francisco Chronicle 'Wonderful, practically magical' Curtis Sittenfeld" --.

(20080909)

"This story of a love affair is pure pleasure to read. Its heroine happens to be a schoolteacher, but Ms. Bynum has such keen eyes and ears and such deep and appealing self-knowledge, you feel she could write no less compellingly about an accountant or an administrator. She can move you in one sentence from wit and hilarity to desperation and wrenching loss. She''s really good." (Jonathan Franzen 20080921)

"Bynum writes with concise, careful phrasing and a clarity that illuminates the depths to be found even in the most quotidian existence." (Library Journal (starred) 20080923)

"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." (Kirkus Reviews (starred) 20080905)

"[B]rilliant...It''s impossible to walk away from this beautifully written book without feeling nostalgic." (DailyCandy.com 20080915)

"Such a beautiful book is MS HEMPEL CHRONICLES, the kind that gives its reader profound insights into ordinary, everyday life... [D]eeply affecting." (Susan Salter Reynolds Los Angeles Times 20080904)

"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 warm-hearted novel-in-stories about a young 7th-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." (Heller McAlpin Christian Science Monitor 20080901)

"[W]hen I opened this utterly charming novel, I fell in love with it..." (Carolyn See Washington Post 20080907)

"[U]tterly 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." (New York Sun 20080901)

"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." (Amy Gerstler Bookforum 20080916)

"Sarah Shun-lien Bynum enchants in ''Ms. Hempel Chronicles.''" (Elissa Schappell Vanity Fair, "Hot Type" 20080929)

"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...[W]ith 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." (Anne Stephenson Arizona Republic )

"As a collection, the tales work together to show a complex and memorable character, while also revealing the staying power of a young, extraordinary writer." (Ken --.

---

Customer Reviews

Humanities teacher approved!
I read "Yurt" in the New Yorker, was anxious for more, and The Ms Hempel Chronicles delivered. As a teacher of adolescents, I was struck at how Bynum nailed the emotional dynamic of the classroom, relationships between teachers and students, the internal struggles of the characters to become who they are and will be. Despite the very different setting and cast of characters from those I know in my own classroom, the relationships and realizations of Ms Hempel seemed uncannily familiar to me. Also - the descriptive style is hilarious as well as dead on. I'm planning on passing it along to my middle school colleagues.

ordinary sublime
Ms. Hempel the schoolteacher lives, works, and loves with both feet firmly planted in the realm of the mundane, but her gently persistent sense of wonderment about life leads to the discovery of the marvelous in the very crevices and folds of the day-to-day. Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's masterful storytelling navigates these twists and turns of nine-to-five city life in a way that (sometimes in the space of a single page!) bears the heart of her reader from ho-hum to melancholy to raptures and back. We meet Ms. Hempel's family, friends, students, colleagues, and love interests, but the novel is really about the profound experience of normal days: finding the remarkable in the unremarkable, the sublime in the routine, a sudden burst of the soul against the tick-tock of the clock. As in life, the plot's movement yields to the force of the heroine's day-in and day-out, but also, quite unexpectedly, draws us into the subtle undercurrent of her intimate journey toward spiritual plenitude. Like her poetic given name, Beatrice, tucked away from everyday view, Ms. Hempel's soul-searching makes gentle cameo appearances at the surface of her daily grind. The novel's power lies in this perfect tension between schoolmarm and muse. Their counterpoint reverberates like a soft heartbeat lending a timeless and organic harmony to the din of our ordinary days.

Here is Heart
I would never have read this book had it not fallen into my hands at the urging of a friend. First of all, what is with that awful, awful cover? And the title? Again, awful.

How many lessons must I (and publishers, for shame) learn about judging a book by its cover? As a writer, I cannot recommend this book enough. Ms Hempel is a thoroughly engaging protagonist full of doubt, wonder, humor, and above all heart. This is a book about life and its author a master. Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's words are carefully chosen - so carefully chosen as to flow effortlessly for the reader.

The sentiment here is not heavy handed; she doesn't beat you over the head. The book is written matter-of-fact, devoid of the chick-flicky weepiness that I so despise. So why did I find myself weeping at the end of this wonderful work of art? I suppose it's because I, as with her former students, remain deeply haunted by Ms. Hempel.