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    The Used World
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    The Used World
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    The Used World
    Ebook413 pages6 hours

    The Used World

    By Haven Kimmel

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Narrated with warmth and intelligence, ‘The Used World’ is the third novel from the bestselling author of ‘The Solace of Leaving Early’ and explores the interconnected lives of three women who work in an antiques emporium in Indiana

    Hazel Hunnicutt is the proprietor of The Used World Emporium, a cavernous antiques store filled with the cast-offs of countless lives in the town of Jonah, Indiana. Knowing, witty and often infuriatingly stubborn, Hazel has lived in the town her whole life, daughter of the local doctor, and is keeper of many of its secrets. Working with her in the store are Claudia, a solitary soul since the death of her beloved parents and, at over 6 feet, an oddity to all who see her; and Rebekah, a young woman forced to leave the suffocating Christian sect she was born into, but adrift in the outside world.

    It is shortly before Christmas and the lives of these three women are about to change irrevocably: for Claudia, who has hidden away from life since the death of her mother, a new arrival – which comes to her in the most unexpected of ways – will give her a second chance at happiness and a family to replace the one she has lost. Meanwhile Rebekah, abandoned by her feckless first boyfriend, must face up to an unplanned pregnancy and exile from her family home. Watching over Claudia and Rebekah is Hazel, whose own story of lost love is revealed in flashbacks. As their lives intertwine in ways they could never have imagined, and a dark chapter of history is revealed, the three women are forced to confront their pasts and face up to the future as this gripping and heart-warming novel reaches its dramatic climax.

    Peopled with a delightfully idiosynchratic cast of characters and with a love story at its centre, ‘The Used World’ is a beautifully written and brilliantly told story, in the tradition of Fannie Flagg, Garrison Keillor and Ann Patchett.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateJun 10, 2010
    ISBN9780007390311
    Unavailable
    The Used World
    Author

    Haven Kimmel

    Haven Kimmel is the author of The Used World, She Got Up Off the Couch, Something Rising (Light and Swift), The Solace of Leaving Early, and A Girl Named Zippy. She studied English and creative writing at Ball State University and North Carolina State University and attended seminary at the Earlham School of Religion. She lives in Durham, N.C.

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    Reviews for The Used World

    4/5

    108 ratings9 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Couldn't follow . Story jumped all around. Leslie didn't like it either!Listened on audio C.J. Critt
    • 4/5
      I also highly recommend Something Rising (Light and Swift) and The Solace of Leaving Early, also by Kimmel. Of the three, though, this one probably has the broadest appeal to readers not completely smitten with Kimmel's idiosyncratic style.
    • 4/5
      I also highly recommend Something Rising (Light and Swift) and The Solace of Leaving Early, also by Kimmel. Of the three, though, this one probably has the broadest appeal to readers not completely smitten with Kimmel's idiosyncratic style.
    • 5/5
      The most amazingly structured book I've read in a long time, maybe ever. She is a serious genius.
    • 5/5
      Well, 1 out of 2 isn’t bad. A few months ago, I read a review of a new book by an author whose work was compared to the works of Ann Patchett and Haven Kimmel. And I LOVE Ann Patchett. So – I bought the hardback of the new book and noted down that author’s name and the name of Haven Kimmel.And SLOGGED through that other book for almost a month. Made a few notes and then decided I didn’t even feel like reviewing it. It wasn’t awful, but it was no Ann Patchett. So then I forgot about it for a while until I ran into “The Used World” by Haven Kimmel.True, I had my suspicions. After all, I’d been led astray once by the magazine review’s promise of a new great author. But – this one was a paperback, at a used bookstore even, so my only real investment would be my time.And an excellent investment it was. THIS was the book I had been looking for. This was the lovely writing, realistic characters with all too human flaws…but with just that touch of – magic? Not actual magic, but the type of magic that takes you from reading a characters thoughts one minute to a place outside that character the next; a place outside reality for just a second. A beautiful place.“Hazel had seen her mother make this gesture a thousand, a hundred thousand times. Two fingers, a delicate touch just on the hairline; the gesture was a word in another language that had a dozen different meanings. “But it’s a sign that we are old, Albert, when we dislike everything new.”“The Used World” is a story of women, a story of a small town and a story of secrets. Secrets kept for years and kept from those they might most affect. The main characters that populate this book are unusual without being quirky (especially that small town quirky that I find intensely irritating in movies and books), deeply flawed without being evil, and provide glimpses of their world and their lives that are irresistible.Even the parts of the book that I didn’t fully grasp were lovely to read. “Hazel slept, finally, and dreamed of a foreign place where many objects were stored. She wandered through alone, picking up things she didn’t recognize, and then there was an old man standing next to her, his hair gone white, his back bent like a crone’s. She remembered he had once been beautiful and was sad for him. He handed her something – a candlestick, a broken bell, a hairbrush – and Hazel knew that it was hers to keep. She hated it, whatever it was, it felt like death itself in her hand, but she couldn’t give it back and she couldn’t put it down, and in the morning she was still holding it, in all the ways that matter.”There are many themes that are woven through this story…loneliness, religion and spirituality, love in many forms…motherly, the love of a friend, the obsessive love that destroys a spirit…and the thin veil that separates past, present and future.“She should rise, she knew, and get the dishes washed, the leftover soup put away. There was enough to freeze a quart, which Vernon could take for lunch sometime in the spring, log after she was gone and no one in this life knew the secret of Ruth’s recipe. She thought maybe she should write it down and tuck it in a drawer somewhere, in case her father ever took another wife, or allowed a woman from the church to come in and feed him. The note could say: My mother sprinkled cinnamon in her vegetable soup. She cooked rice in chicken broth, not water. She touched everything as if it were fragile. She listened when you talked and she didn’t judge and she had an easy laugh, for a woman in her time and place.”There is a plot to this story as well as lovely words and captivating characters. In a small town world where everyone knows one another and many of the days run together, many lives are changed forever in the course of the book. I was expecting a few gotcha moments that didn’t come and was caught off guard by a few surprises. But as things unfold, as characters make choices to take their lives in different directions, it all feels real.Even moments that on their face seem melodramatic, are framed so well through the eyes of the characters that while startling, are not at all jarring.When I reflect back upon the story of Hazel, Claudia and Rebekah, I know there is much that I missed. I know what happened in the time period reflected in the book and I know some of what happened before their time. But I also know there are underlying events and whispered truths that slipped by me in this reading. But I loved reading this book and I loved these characters and I know I will revisit them and their world.
    • 2/5
      I'm giving up on The Used World by Haven Kimmel. I find my mind continually wandering, thinking about everything and anything except the writing. This author's writing is all over the place, she moves from the present to the past and back to the present again without any warning, and I feel completely lost trying to follow it. I am not "grabbed" by this book at all, and although I hate to give up on a book this early into it....I simply must. Life is short. I don't want to have to work at it, I want a book to draw me in and captivate me completely....I don't want to have to read a paragraph over 4 times and still not get it. Maybe some would like it, I don't.
    • 5/5
      I love Haven Kimmel's writing. It is so accessible, so easy to relate to and so funny. Plus, her quirky characters are almost as amusing as her own family members in her memoirs. I think she has a real talent and this book is no exception.
    • 4/5
      Centers around three women, all of whom have complicated family backgrounds. Hazel Hunnicut owns Hazel Hunnicut's Used World Emporium, in which she has liquidated the furnishings of her childhood home. She has two employees, Claudia and Rebekah.Claudia is a tall woman who is often mistaken for a man. She is grieving the loss of her mother and lives in her childhood home, which is filled with empty bedrooms. At the beginning of the book, Rebekah is living with her father although she's fallen away from his fundamentalist church. When she reveals that she's pregnant, her father gives her a terrible choice. Will her boyfriend be her salvation?Hazel's complex family background is revealed during the course of the book. Why does she insist on going to a dangerous farm to kidnap a baby? What was her mother's terrible secret? The characters are well-drawn and engaging.
    • 5/5
      "The Used World" is an uncommonly intelligent look at the intersection of religion and life, gender and betrayal. The old objects in the antique mall are evocative; the lives of the women in the present are compelling. The description makes it sound like a heartwarming story from the heartland, which it is--sort of. It's just so much deeper than that. Characters are not as they first appear--sort of. Their development is true and funny and, in a few cases, heartbreaking.Kimmel has a special way with words. I wish I could find a quotation to post here, but I've loaned the book to someone else. It is a book that wants to be shared.