A Novel
by Haven Kimmel
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.
"It's an intriguing puzzle box of a novel with a few edges left unsanded. " - PW.
"No one can evoke a universe with a safety pin holding up its hem in the way Haven Kimmel can. In her third novel, The Used World, she tells a story of an eccentric collective of women with the majesty of a parable and the poignancy of a country song. As Faulkner did before her, Kimmel writes about doing what needs doing." - Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Haven Kimmel was born in New Castle, Indiana, and was raised in Mooreland, Indiana, the focus of her bestselling memoir, A Girl Named Zippy. She is the other of four other novels, a second memoir and two childrens books.
Kimmel earned her undergraduate degree in English and creative writing from Ball Sate University and attended North Carolina State University as well as the seminary at the Earlham School of Religion. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.
From the author's website
Great literature cannot grow from a neglected or impoverished soil...
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