In the Breeze of Passing Things
a novel
MacAdam/Cage Publishing, 2003
Ten-year-old Iva Giles's father must be lost. His checks, which once arrived every week, become sporadically-mailed wadded dollar bills, then cease altogether. She lives with her mother and little sister, half in her present world of altering scenery and erasing reality more every day, and half in her past world.
What Iva knows about her father is his obsession with water—his trips to lakes, rivers, and oceans searching for something—and that she was his favorite. Iva’s tried to stand still long enough for him to come back to her.
As their mother drives the girls farther from where they last knew him, in a quick string of moves into smaller and smaller houses until there’s no house at all but only a motel room—Iva feels she’s losing her grasp on their past.
So she runs. She boards a Gulf-bound bus in the middle of the night, searching for what was pulling her father away. She confronts her mother’s limitations of the heart, her sister’s limitations of youth, and ultimately, Iva chooses her own path back to the only thing she believes is real anymore, or was ever real at all. But what she finds in Pascagoula, Mississippi, isn’t at all what she expected—and so neither is she.
What Iva knows about her father is his obsession with water—his trips to lakes, rivers, and oceans searching for something—and that she was his favorite. Iva’s tried to stand still long enough for him to come back to her.
As their mother drives the girls farther from where they last knew him, in a quick string of moves into smaller and smaller houses until there’s no house at all but only a motel room—Iva feels she’s losing her grasp on their past.
So she runs. She boards a Gulf-bound bus in the middle of the night, searching for what was pulling her father away. She confronts her mother’s limitations of the heart, her sister’s limitations of youth, and ultimately, Iva chooses her own path back to the only thing she believes is real anymore, or was ever real at all. But what she finds in Pascagoula, Mississippi, isn’t at all what she expected—and so neither is she.
Praise for In the Breeze of Passing Things
"In the Breeze of Passing Things is a rare find of a novel: emotion that returns you to your original thirsts; prose worth reading with a highlighter in hand; an author worth following through what I'm sure will be a long and noteworthy career."
-- Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay it Forward and Electric God
"This is a heartbreaking, eloquently drawn first novel about a young girl named Iva and the unstable, irresponsible, absentee father she can't help but love. Narrated by the vulnerable Iva, the book explores with great subtlety and pathos her growing understanding of her troubled father. . . . This moving and richly nuanced portrait of a tormented family probes the complex ways the world challenges us and the courage required to meet those challenges."
-- Library Journal
"Reid . . . gets Iva's stubborn, innocent voice right. The Southern settings--from Texas to Tennessee--are warmly drawn . . . . a richly imagined debut."
-- Publishers Weekly
"Reid, in her first novel, creates in Iva a narrative voice that is strong but scared, intelligent yet naive, jaded and still full of hope."
-- Booklist
"A lyrical, deeply felt debut about a young girl’s search for her father."
-- Kirkus Reviews
-- Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay it Forward and Electric God
"This is a heartbreaking, eloquently drawn first novel about a young girl named Iva and the unstable, irresponsible, absentee father she can't help but love. Narrated by the vulnerable Iva, the book explores with great subtlety and pathos her growing understanding of her troubled father. . . . This moving and richly nuanced portrait of a tormented family probes the complex ways the world challenges us and the courage required to meet those challenges."
-- Library Journal
"Reid . . . gets Iva's stubborn, innocent voice right. The Southern settings--from Texas to Tennessee--are warmly drawn . . . . a richly imagined debut."
-- Publishers Weekly
"Reid, in her first novel, creates in Iva a narrative voice that is strong but scared, intelligent yet naive, jaded and still full of hope."
-- Booklist
"A lyrical, deeply felt debut about a young girl’s search for her father."
-- Kirkus Reviews
In the Breeze of Passing Things: a novel by Nicole Louise Reid
Please order this out-of-print hardcover novel here. Its publisher, MacAdam/Cage, has "liquidated" all of its assets--including my book and its unauthorized e-book to a shill company--and no M/C authors will be paid unless you buy directly from us!
(MacAdam/Cage Publishing, 2003)
Buy a signed copy of the book directly from me and indicate in the "Note to Seller" section to whom (your name, someone else's?) I should sign the book.
"This is a heartbreaking, eloquently drawn first novel about a young girl named Iva and the unstable, irresponsible, absentee father she can't help but love. Narrated by the vulnerable Iva, the book explores with great subtlety and pathos her growing understanding of her troubled father. . . . This moving and richly nuanced portrait of a tormented family probes the complex ways the world challenges us and the courage required to meet those challenges." -- Library Journal
(MacAdam/Cage Publishing, 2003)
Buy a signed copy of the book directly from me and indicate in the "Note to Seller" section to whom (your name, someone else's?) I should sign the book.
"This is a heartbreaking, eloquently drawn first novel about a young girl named Iva and the unstable, irresponsible, absentee father she can't help but love. Narrated by the vulnerable Iva, the book explores with great subtlety and pathos her growing understanding of her troubled father. . . . This moving and richly nuanced portrait of a tormented family probes the complex ways the world challenges us and the courage required to meet those challenges." -- Library Journal