“It is the part that is missing that I am drawn to, that I try to pin down. My gaze is always divided by what is here and what is no longer here. That, for me, is where the deepest pleasure lies, where the sweet overcomes the bitter."
A couple coping with a recent loss are tasked with taking stock of a late biology enthusiast’s hoard. A support worker dedicated to rehabilitating young women suffering from, among other things, a certain unexpected effect of the climate apocalypse faces a truth that shatters the illusion separating her work and her personal life. An archaeologist formerly working in Syria struggles with her decision to flee from unrest, while the people she has left behind face an uncertain fate.
In Jennifer Falkner’s richly imagined first collection, past and present glancingly converge, making the familiar outlines of myth, history, and everyday life seem suddenly strange. With spare, elegant prose, Falkner introduces the reader to those whose narratives are written in the language of empty space. Above Discovery is a stunning debut collection from an author to watch.
"Jen Falkner’s stories bring us not only into wondrous worlds, but deep into vivid and fascinating lives. It isn’t often that a collection invites you into its stories so completely that you come to inhabit its characters, but that’s exactly what’s on offer in Above Discovery. We as readers are enthralled, challenged, and implicated. This book is one to savour, and Jen Falkner is a writer to watch."—Andrew Forbes, author of The Utility of Boredom and Lands and Forests
"Elegant and atmospheric. Falkner’s beautiful writing puts her readers right in her characters’ worlds and heads. ... I recommend treating this collection like a box of chocolates: read just one per day and savor it."—Historical Novel Society
"Falkner’s stories are dark, transportive, and intimately detailed character studies. Her expansive interest in history is apparent, ingrained in the minutiae of each fiction [wherein] looking backward, the constraints of the past are unexpectedly and undeniably revealed as intertwined with those of the present. … [An] exciting debut from Falkner."—Quill & Quire, Starred Review