Jill Ciment

The place: central Florida. The situation: a sensational murder trial involving a rich, white teenage girl--a twin--on trial for the horrific murder of her toddler brother, and the sequestered jury deciding her fate. . Two of the jurors sequestered (she, Juror C-2; he, F-17), holed up at the Econo-Lodge off I-75. As the shocking and numbing details of the crime and its surrounding facts are revealed during a string of days and seemingly endless court hours, the nights, playing out in a series of court-financed meals Hannah and Graham fall into a furtive affair, keeping their oath, as jurors, never to discuss the trial. During deliberations the lovers learn they are on opposing sides of the case and realize that their fellow jurors are wise to their affair. After the trial's end, as Hannah returns home to her much older, now, suddenly, frail husband (they married when she was 24; he, 58) an exploding media fury involving the case catches them all up in a frenzy of public outrage at a jury that seems to have convicted the wrong twin, and a judge who has received an anonymous handwritten letter about a series of sexual encounters ("I feel it is my duty as a juror and a citizen to report that two of my fellow jurors had sexual contact on more than seven occasions during our nights at the motel..."), calling into question their respective verdicts, and announcing she is releasing the jurors' names to the media. Hannah's "one last dalliance before she is too old" takes on profoundly personal and moral consequences, as the novel moves to its affecting, powerful and surprising conclusion.

A Novel

The Body in Question

A Memoir

Consent

When their row house is contaminated by a strange mold infestation that ultimately spreads throughout Brooklyn, four women are forced to evacuate with only the clothes on their backs and become caught up in a centrifugal nightmare as frightened, bewildered New Yorkers wait out this plague.

Act of God

A Manhattan couple hosting an open house to sell their apartment experience even more stress, chaos, and confusion when they also have to rush their beloved dachshund to the vet in the middle of what may be a terrorist attack.

Heroic Measures

Sara Ehrenreich, an acclaimed American painter who has spent the past thirty years living on a remote South Pacific island, returns to New York in the 1970s, in a novel that reveals the story of her life through flashbacks.

The Tattoo Artist

The author describes her family's move to Los Angeles; her father's loss of sanity and brutalization of his family; her careers as a gang girl, professional forger, and porno model; and her marriage to an older man

Half a Life

*** NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR *** From the author of Heroic Measures (“Smart and funny and completely surprising . . . I loved every page” —Ann Patchett), Act of God (“A feat of literary magic”—Booklist) and, with Amy Hempel, The Hand That Feeds You (“An unnerving, elegant page-turner” —Vanity Fair), a spare, masterful novel. The place: central Florida. The situation: a sensational murder trial, set in a courthouse more Soviet than Le Corbusier; a rich, white teenage girl—a twin—on trial for murdering her toddler brother. Two of the jurors: Hannah, a married fifty-two-year-old former Rolling Stone and Interview Magazine photographer of rock stars and socialites (she began to photograph animals when she realized she saw people “as a species”), and Graham, a forty-one-year-old anatomy professor. Both are sequestered (she, juror C-2; he, F-17) along with the other jurors at the Econo Lodge off I-75. As the shocking and numbing details of the crime are revealed during a string of days and courtroom hours, and the nights play out in a series of court-financed meals at Outback Steak House (the state isn’t paying for their drinks) and Red Lobster, Hannah and Graham fall into a furtive affair, keeping their oath as jurors never to discuss the trial. During deliberations the lovers learn that they are on opposing sides of the case. Suddenly they look at one another through an altogether different lens, as things become more complicated . . . After the verdict, Hannah returns home to her much older husband, but the case ignites once again and Hannah’s “one last dalliance before she is too old” takes on profoundly personal and moral consequences as The Body in Question moves to its affecting, powerful, and surprising conclusion.

From acclaimed novelist and short story writer (“A virtuoso . . . ” —Donna Seaman, Booklist), a deft, somewhat shocking, memoir—a 21st-century Lolita turned upside down, told from the point of view of the girl, the author, seen in the context of the current discourse on sexual harassment and abuse in the era of #MeToo. “Few writers can tackle the bedroom—or female libido . . . but Ciment is a master: in exquisitely spare prose, she nails it.” — Penelope Green, The New York Times about The Body in Question A close-up look at the ardent, willed love affair between the author and her art teacher that began when she was 17 and he, 47, married with two children, and the contortions and erotic wild ride their illicit, urgent passion took them on as it turned into an improbable but blissful marriage that lasted for 45 years until his death at 93. A stunning, riveting book about morality and about a decades-long marriage that begins with a kiss and consensual sex (into criminality?), that asks—and explores—many questions along the way: does a story’s ending excuse its beginning? Does a kiss in one moment mean something else entirely five decades later? Can a love that starts with such an asymmetrical balance of power ever right itself . . . ?

The basis for the major motion picture 5 Flights Up starring Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman. New York City is on high alert—a gasoline truck is “stuck” in the Midtown tunnel and the driver has fled. Through panic and gridlock, Alex and Ruth must transport their beloved old dachshund—whose back legs are suddenly paralyzed—to the animal hospital, using a cutting board as a stretcher. But this is also the weekend when Alex and Ruth must sell the apartment in which they have lived for most of their adult lives. Over the course of forty-eight hours, as the mystery of the missing truck driver terrorizes the city and the dachshund’s life hangs in the balance, the bidding war over their apartment becomes a barometer for collective hope and despair. Told in shifting points of view—Alex’s, Ruth’s, and the little dog’s—Heroic Measures is a moving, deft novel about urban anxiety and the love that deepens over years.

A brilliant comic suspense novel and perfect summer read Brooklyn, the summer of 2015. The city is sweltering from another record-breaking heatwave, accompanied by biblical rains, and now a mysteriously glowing mushroom infestation is threatening the city. As the HAZMAT squad descends, identical twin sisters Edith, a recently retired librarian, and Kat, a feckless romantic who mistakes her own eccentricity for originality, are evacuated from their terraced house alongside their landlady and a Russian interloper, caught in a centrifugal nightmare. And as the mould spreads from house to house, frightened and bewildered New Yorkers wonder whether this plague on all their houses is an act of God... Part horror story, part screwball comedy, Act of God>/em> considers what happens when our lives - so seemingly set and ordered yet so precariously balanced - break down in the wake of calamity. It is, also, a novel about love found in the most unlikely circumstances. The award-winning author Jill Ciment was born in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of Small Claims, a collection of short stories and novellas; the novels The Law of Falling Bodies, Teeth of the Dog, The Tattoo Artist and Heroic Measures; and a memoir, Half a Life. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and prizes, among them a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and a Guggenheim fellowship. Ciment shares her time between Florida and Brooklyn, and is a professor of creative writing at the University of Florida. Her novel Heroic Measures is also published by Pushkin Press.

Moving on is never easy Ruth and Alex Cohen are saying goodbye to their beloved New York apartment - because how can they turn down a million dollars? Tomorrow they will open their doors to the eclectic, maddening house-hunters of this city. But Manhattan is in chaos; an unmarked petrol truck is blocking the city's main tunnel, spreading fears of terrorism and threatening to disrupt a sacred bidding war over the ageing couple's home. Across town, their adored old dachshund Dorothy lies sick in a hospital cage. She doesn't understand why she has been abandoned - all she knows is that Death is coming for her, and she isn't ready. Unravelling over a long weekend, Heroic Measures is a bittersweet, comic tale of what it means to grow old in a world you no longer recognise. It is also a gentle paean to New York, to fleeting beauty, and to holding on to what we love with all our might. Jill Cimentwas born in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of Small Claims, a collection of short stories and novellas; the novels The Law of Falling Bodies, Teeth of the Dog, The Tattoo Artist, and Heroic Measures; and a memoir, Half a Life. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, among them a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and a Guggenheim fellowship. Ciment is a professor at the University of Florida. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, and Brooklyn, New York. Pushkin will publish her latest novel Act of God in 2016.

"Eine grandiose Darstellung von weiblichem Begehren." (The New York Times) Ein bildstarker literarischer Thriller voller unerwarteter Wendungen um einen spektakulären Prozess und eine verhängnisvolle Affäre Die Jugendliche Anca Butler ist angeklagt, ihren Babybruder getötet zu haben. Fraglich ist jedoch, ob sie als Autistin überhaupt schuldfähig und ihre Zwillingsschwester als Zeugin glaubwürdig ist. Die Jurymitglieder werden über Wochen in Gerichtssaal und Motel abgekapselt; unter ihnen eine verheiratete Fotografin, die sich – "auf der Suche nach einem letzten Abenteuer, bevor sie zu alt dafür ist" – auf eine Affäre mit einem Mitgeschworenen einlässt. Schon bald finden die beiden sich in einem ausweglosen Konflikt aus körperlichem Begehren und moralischen Bedenken wieder – in einem bildstarken literarischen Thriller, der kein Wort zu viel enthält.

Jill Ciment

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