Joan Frank – författare

Winner of the 2010 Richard Sullivan Prize in Fiction, Joan Frank's second story collection, In Envy Country, explores the uncertainties and triumphs of women and men in and out of love and marriage, at varying ages and stages of contemporary American life. By turns wry, pained, and amused, In Envy Country investigates those small, complex truths that gain clarity with time and distance. Frank, whose earlier books have been reviewed in The New York Times Book Review and Publisher's Weekly, sets these stories in Paris, California, and Spain.

Part memoir, part handbook, part survey of the contemporary literary scene, Joan Frank's Because You Have To: A Writing Life is a collection of essays that, taken together, provide a walking tour of the writing life. Frank's aim is to form a coherent vision, one that may provide some communion about realities of the writer's vocation that have struck her as rarely revealed.Frank offers what she has learned as a writer not only to other writers, but to those to whom good writing matters. Her insights about "thinking on paper" are never dogmatic or pontifical; rather, they are cordial and intellectually welcoming. Original, witty, and practical, Frank ably steers us through the journey of her own life as a writer, as well as through the careers and work of other writers. Her subjects range widely, from the "boot camp" conditioning of marketing work to squaring off with rejection and envy; from sustaining belief in art's necessity to the baffling subjectivity of literary perception and the magical books that nourish writers. Frank's personal journey is wonderfully told, so that what in these essays is particular becomes useful and universal.

Miss Kansas City is the story of an improbable friendship, set in the tumultuous mid-80s dotcom California, where youthful greed and blinkered innocence arrive intertwined.   Friendless and reclusive, Alex Blue commutes two hours each way to a job that serves mainly as a place to bide time, until one day she meets the wealthy, worldly—and married—owner of a high-concept Bay Area lifestyle company. Meanwhile, the melancholy and closeted Morton Levi, yearning for a loving partner but stung by prior experience, lives a secret life outside the software information company he manages with a steady, efficient hand—the same company where Alex works.   As ominous rumors of mergers and layoffs swirl, and Alex and Mort are pushed to the emotional brink by the vagaries of love, they find themselves forging an unexpected alliance. Miss Kansas City is a moving exploration of the notion of possibility, and of a seasoned hope that can emerge on the other side of loneliness and loss.

Through the author's travels in Europe and the United States, Try to Get Lost explores the quest for place that compels and defines us: the things we carry, how politics infuse geography, media's depictions of an idea of home, the ancient and modern reverberations of the word 'hotel,' and the ceaseless discovery generated by encounters with self and others on familiar and foreign ground. Frank posits that in fact time itself may be our ultimate, inhabited place the vastest real estate we know, with a stunningly short lease.

Curious, ruminative, and wry, this literary autobiography tours what Rachel Kushner called "the strange remove that is the life of the writer." Frank's essays cover a vast spectrum--from handling dismissive advice, facing the dilemma of thwarted ambition, and copying the generosity that inspires us, to the miraculous catharsis of letter-writing and some of the books that pull us through. Useful for writers at any stage of development, Late Work offers a seasoned artist's thinking through the exploration of issues, paradoxes, and crises of faith. Like a lively conversation with a close, outspoken friend, each piece tells its experience from the trenches.

THE OUTLOOK FOR EARTHLINGS traces an unusual, difficult friendship across a lifetime, between women of stunningly opposite natures. Melanie Taper is rule-bound, timid, compelled to obey and venerate authority. Yet in unguarded moments she demonstrates such deadly insight into human foibles as to suggest a strength that has, for dark reasons, deliberately hidden itself lifelong. “No woman,” she notes, “can declare a man is wonderful, like one who doesn''t know him.” Scarlet Rand, by contrast, is rash, willful, abrasive, impatient of reverence of any stripe. She is vexed by “demure” traits and “small fussing motions.” Scarlet is shocked by Mel''s passive reserve; by her strained, almost archaic meekness. Despite her obvious gifts, Mel is — bafflingly — self-erasing. Mel''s Billy Budd-like saintliness maddens Scarlet—because finally and most troublingly, Scarlet disbelieves it. Their friendship, begun in high school and resumed in midlife, suggests to each a final frontier, a saving sanctuary. Yet at its core, a pained impasse soon becomes evident: Each woman takes a secret, moral offense at the other''s inmost nature—and choices. Living out these differences—against awareness of the illness which is slowly destroying one of them—proves an ultimate challenge. In each, a reckoning must occur. THE OUTLOOK FOR EARTHLINGS examines what women want, amid conflicting layers of need—between privacy and exposure, solitude and society, authenticity and connection, expectation and actuality. It ponders beginnings, endings, and Virginia Woolf''s declaration that good angels must be killed. It considers the limits of friendship—and of the act of witnessing. At its heart, it asks how we may finally measure a life—and who should do the measuring.EARTHLINGS tracks the trajectory of a problematic friendship over a lifetime, between two women of opposite natures who are nevertheless perhaps too close.

Buzzfeed News,"15 Small Press Books To Kick Off Your 2020 Reading Season" The Millions, “February Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated” "Death looms in these four sparkling novellas—thus the book’s sly title—but until then there’s the wonder of life. Frank’s subjects include fascinating friendships and complicated marriages, awful parties and odd enthusiasm. Bonus: song mentions that add up to a terrifically eclectic playlist.” —Kim Hubbard, People MagazineIn her quartet of novellas, Joan Frank invites readers into the inner lives of characters bewildered by love, grief, and inexplicable affinities.A young couple navigates a strange friendship and unexpected pregnancy; a woman recalls the bizarre fallout of her former lover's fame; a lonely widow is drawn to an arrogant young man; a wealthy spiritual seeker grapples with what wealth cannot affect. Witty and humane, Frank taps the riches of the novella form as she writes of loneliness, friendship, loss, and the filaments of intimacy that connect us through time.