Reviews
Reviews of Remnant of a Shattered Vase
“Comprehensive and concise, full of vitality, defiance, and candor.”
~Paul Lisicky, author of LATER: MY LIFE AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD and THE NARROW DOOR: A MEMOIR OF FRIENDSHIP and the memoir THE SKY IN IT: A LIFE WITH JONI MITCHELL, forthcoming from HarperOne
"I really loved this book. It felt so deeply authentic."
~ Jill Dearman, author of JAZZED
"This is a lifetime’s work. I’m so in awe of its vast scope and the concentrated attention brought to it."
~Jung Hae Chae, of the forthcoming Graywolf Press memoir, POJANGMACHA PEOPLE
"A seething and compassionate look at that age-old bind of being a partner and a person at the same time."
~ Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL
"I can feel the raw emotions – pain, anger, dismay – running underneath these pieces."
~ Paula Carter, author of the flash memoir collection NO RELATION
In this moving memoir, Genevieve Beltran exposes the raw essence of marriage, birth, and death.
~ Lucy Sanna, author of THE CHERRY HARVEST
This memoir-in-fragments deftly slips back and forth through time, spiraling an ancient question: “Why do I stay?”
~ Lauren C. Johnson, Co-Host of Babylon Salon and Co-Creator of the Club Chicxulub Journal and Reading Series.
Beltran’s clear prose and direct style render the losses she describes all the more powerful. She is a courageous writer.
~ Esperanza Hope Snyder, author of ESPERANZA AND HOPE
Stitched together like an exquisite mosaic, using those small moments that make up a life, Genevieve Beltran has masterfully crafted what at first might appear to be about a marriage of two mis-matched people. But it’s so much more than that. It’s about the struggle that can keep us together or tear us apart.
~ Charles Salzberg, author of MAN ON THE RUN
And Lauren Markham, author of THE FAR AWAY BROTHERS and in whose online class on essay writing this book began, said about the early draft of this memoir, "I’m in awe of how this moves through emotional, narrative and conceptual territory in so little space. These pieces are very alive."
Reviews of Life After Eleanor
Life After Eleanor is a tender, witty and wildly original novel about two iconic women in love and on the run toward uncompromising happiness. You won't soon forget Beltran's Eleanor and Hick. —De'Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills, a New York Times’ Editor’s Choice
Beltran’s deliciously inventive novel reimagines Eleanor Roosevelt faking her death (she’s got Kennedy’s help!), in order to hide in plain sight with her lover Hick and live a life of love. But is love enough? And can someone as iconic as Eleanor be content away from a spotlight? So, so smart, funny, warm and heartbreaking and filled with celebrity cameos, this is a wonderful book about who people think we are, who we think we are, and the deepest truth: who we really can become. —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling author of Pictures of You and With or Without You
This novel is utterly original and audacious. I love the imaginative premise as well as the execution. —Matthew Lansburgh, author of Outside Is the Ocean, Winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award and finalist for the 30th annual Lambda Literary Award, and the 2018 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBQ Fiction
Life After Eleanor is a charming and invigorating alternate herstory of one of the most iconic American couples. Beltran takes Eleanor and Hick out of the closet and into a wonderfully nuanced life together. A clever concept fleshed out with heart and hilarity. —Jill Dearman, author of The Great Bravura, Bang the Keys, and Feminism: The March Towards Equal Rights for Women.
The funniest thing I’ve ever read! —Adair Lara, author of Hold Me Close, Let Me Go and Naked, Drunk, and Writing
Suppose Eleanor Roosevelt didn’t die. Suppose the canny Kennedys plotted a way to spring her from a dreary life of boredom and public obligation to one of love and liberty. Suppose Eleanor’s escape companion was her secret lover, former Associated Press correspondent Lorena Hickok. Will they live happily ever after? Fantasy collides with destiny in Genevieve Beltran’s whimsical winner, Life After Eleanor. —Antoinette May, author of Witness to War, Pilate’s Wife and The Determined Heart.
Beltran’s witty debut immerses us in Eleanor Roosevelt’s second-life fantasy with her lover, Lorena Hickock, in a novel brimming with smart dialogue and an ingenious plot. —Lucy Sanna, author of The Cherry Harvest
Eleanor Roosevelt, that much lauded and mythologized American icon, enjoys new life in Beltran’s generous and wonderfully inventive, LIFE AFTER ELEANOR. What if Eleanor faked her own death? What if she fled with her lover, seeking an anonymous and relatively modest life in the west? In LIFE AFTER ELEANOR, Beltran uses extensive biographical research as a jumping off point for a delightful work of fiction. —Mary Volmer, author of Reliance, Illinois and Crown of Dust
