Confessions of a Falling Woman

December 17, 2007
Dean follows her debut novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad
, with a humorous collection chronicling struggling actors and actresses, therapy sessions and romantic relationships on the brink of disaster. After a bizarre break-in, the 30-something actor-narrator of “Dan in the Gray Flannel Rat Suit” finds himself on the cusp of fleeing a cruel New York with his wife and child. “The Queen Mother” reveals an actress returning to Louisiana to help coax her dramatic, alcoholic mom to rehab. In “The Afterlife of Lyle Stone,” a Seattle attorney allows a vivid dream to unhinge his waking life, while a group of creative-minded neighbors have their lives shaken up by a Muppet-like puppeteer in “What the Left Hand Is Saying.” Herself a former actress, Dean illuminates the nastiness of the business and the psychic toll of performance, writing about failure and loss with unfailing comic precision: “But gradually I fall under the spell of my own acting, or the rhythm of the act, it doesn’t matter which,” the narrator of “Romance Manual” says of sleeping with a fellow cast member. Readers will certainly forget themselves in these sparkling stories, pausing over small, strange moments that change entire lives.

February 15, 2008
Dean, author of the best-selling "The Madonnas of Leningrad", has put together a stunning collection of stories. She presents several stories concerning actors: a gregarious puppeteer turns against his friends when he puts on his puppet in "What the Left Hand is Saying"; an actress in a traveling show realizes that she will lose her married lover in "Romance Manual"; and an aging part-time actor risks losing his marriage by accepting yet one more bit part in "Dan in the Gray Flannel Rat Suit." In the title story, a dying woman writes a letter to her ex-husband, forgiving him for the accident that killed their only child. In "The Afterlife of Lyle Stone," Lyle suffers a breakdown that causes him to question his life but forgets about it in the face of antidepressants. Characters are drawn subtly, with just enough detail to let the reader feel the personality, and the story is allowed to carry the characters to its conclusion. These polished stories evoke a more experienced writer than Dean, who has already had a career as an actor. Recommended for libraries where there is an interest in literary fiction or short stories.Amy Ford, St. Mary's Cty. Lib., Lexington Park, MD

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2008
Well-adjusted individuals have little place in the works of novelist and former actress Dean (The Madonnas of Leningrad, 2006). From estranged children to uneasy ex-wives, this edgy collection features flawed characters in precarious mental states. A nightmare about the hereafter throws a successful executive for an emotional loop in The Afterlife of Lyle Stone. A womans chance encounter with her husband proves bitter and sweet in Another Little Piece of My Heart. A New Yorker ponders her complex relationship with her shrink in The Bodhisattva. A southern family confronts its domineering alcoholic matriarch; a dying divorc'e reaches out to her ex-husband; a friends wedding brings a husband face-to-face with the possibility of infidelity. In the overly long Dan in the Gray Flannel Rat Suit, a brush with crime frays a struggling New York actors nerves. Deans years of role-playing have made her a consummate chronicler of life and love. Scratch the surface and theyre all the same, says an actress of her assorted lovers in Romance Manual. But you learn not to scratch.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)