Want a fun summer read?
Now that you can visit friends this summer, are you? If so, you might want to read this book, which is featured in paperback, to get a good laugh at how the protaganist reacts when she visits four old friends. Featured below are some brief reviews of the book–hopefully enough to pique your interest. You won’t be sorry!!
“When 40-year-old gardener May receives a surprise windfall of one month of vacation from the university where she works, she decides to visit four old friends, each one from different periods of her life. Through this initially simple and irresistible starting point, Jessica Francis Kane investigates the most universal mysteries of all.”—Isaac Fitzgerald, Today
“This beautiful novel tackles loneliness in the digital age and the lost art of visiting. Introvert May Attaway is granted some unexpected time off as a university gardener and is inspired to reconnect with four once-close friends. May chooses to bypass her friends’ perfectly cultivated online lives to instead meet them IRL. Gives a whole new meaning to Instagram vs. reality.”—Good Morning America
“This spirit-warming saga, an antidote to the uncivil, is a novel to be read again and again, whenever one needs a reminder to seize the day…Treat yourself to Jessica Francis Kane’s novel Rules for Visiting, an elixir in book form about a quest for friendship that could have been written by Jane Austen’s great great-great-granddaughter.”—O Magazine
“Crackles with wit”—The New York Times
“Kane’s understated meditation on loneliness in the digital age [is] just the right kind of narrative, an antidote for our distracted days.”—Hillary Kelly, Vulture
“Fun, hilarious, and extremely touching… its coming out right around Mother’s Day is no coincidence… I loved May as a character… she doesn’t need me to like her, though. She has her plants, her father, some new or revitalized friendships, and her own sharp and witty mind to keep her company. She is no Grendel — only a deeply alive human.”—Ilana Masad, NPR
“At 40, May Attaway, the protagonist, finds herself alone and feeling profoundly disconnected from her life and from herself. When she receives an unexpected gift of time off, she seizes the opportunity to visit four old friends. May is smart, funny and more than a little prickly. Readers will love her and find her story both moving and reassuring.”—Michael Barnard, San Francisco Chronicle
“Quietly powerful”—The Chicago Tribune
“Impeccably written and surprisingly moving…May’s journey is lovely and deeply affecting.”—Publisher’s Weekly
“In the age of Facebook, the true nature of friendship can seem muddled . . . [May] voices the doubts and dreams of any woman who has questioned what it means to be a true friend. Rich in subtexts and lush imagery, Kane’s novel is a sure bet for lively book discussions.”—Booklist, starred review
“Jessica Francis Kane’s precise and moving Rules For Visiting is an altogether new sort of friendship novel, one about friendships stretched to their limits over time and space, the sort of friendships so many of us count as our closest. Kane’s gift for describing beauty and loneliness, the real stuff of life, is unparalleled.”—Emma Straub, author of Modern Lovers
“An engaging and compassionate portrait of how a root-bound, constricted life can begin to bloom. Drawing inspiration from mythic sources, Kane explores the power of friendship and of our connection to the natural world. Her descriptions of plants are transporting.”—Madeline Miller, author of Circe
About the Author
Jessica Francis Kane is the author of This Close, The Report, and Bending Heaven. This Close was longlisted for The Story Prize and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize, and The Report was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection and a finalist for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in a number of publications, including Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, The Yale Review, A Public Space, and Granta.