Law of Falling Bodies - Paperback

by Jill Ciment (Author)

From the author of the highly praised Small Claims comes an unlikely and beguiling mother-daughter story as they navigate through uniquely puzzling parts of their lives.

Gloria is a modern-day "snake oil" saleswoman and a quixotic entrepreneur who sells everything from metal detectors to aphrodisiac perfumes, but her real stock-in-trade is hope. She and her teenage daughter, Kim, drive throughout the Southwest, pulling their trailer from town to town, staying one small step ahead of the postmaster general and the FDA the entire time.

This is the only world Kim has ever known, until Arthur, a widow thirty years older than her, crashes into her life and takes her heart hostage. As the young girl and senior fall in love, Gloria has a vision in a car wash, launching her into a scheme she hopes will be her greatest triumph.

Both laugh-out-loud funny and heartachingly poignant, The Law of Falling Bones is not only a delicate, loving portrayal of a daughter's fierce devotion to her wildly unconventional mother, but it is a surprisingly magical story of a genuine relationship between two significant opposites.

Back Jacket

Jill Ciment's tough, tender first novel tells an unlikely, utterly beguiling love story. Both laugh-out-loud funny and heartachingly poignant, it is not only a delicate, loving portrayal of a daughter's fierce devotion to her wildly unconventional mother, but a surprisingly magical story of a true May/December relationship. Gloria is a modern-day "snake oil" saleswoman, a quixotic entrepreneur who sells everything from metal detectors to aphrodisiac perfumes but whose real stock-in-trade is hope. "I am not dealing with the banal arithmetic of earning a couple of bucks", she says, "I am dealing with the aerodynamics of human dreams". She and her teenage daughter, Kim, drive throughout the Southwest, pulling their trailer home from town to town, just one step ahead of the postmaster general ("I imagined him as a successful mailman with epaulets") and the FDA. It is the only world Kim has ever known - until Arthur literally comes crashing into their lives, demolishing the trailer and taking Kim's heart hostage. As the young girl and the gentle widower thirty years her senior begin to fall in love, a new home no less improbable than the first takes shape - an embodiment of the magic Gloria has tried all her life to peddle in a bottle. Meanwhile, Gloria has a vision in a car wash and launches into the scheme she hopes will bring her greatest triumph. . . By turns lyrical, droll, and hauntingly sad, this larger-than-life love story distills the ingredients of the only aphrodisiac that really works: one part mad dream, one part chance, and three parts genuine humanity.

Author Biography

Jill Ciment was born in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of Small Claims, a collection of shorts stories and novellas; Half a Life, a memoir; and several novels including The Tattoo Artist and Teeth of the Dog. She has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts, a NEA Japan Fellowship Prize, two New York State Fellowships for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ciment is a professor at the University of Florida, and lives with her husband in Gainesville, Florida, and Brooklyn, New York.