Rules for Visiting
by Jessica Francis Kane
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Pub Date 6 Jun 2019 | Archive Date 20 Jul 2019
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Description
'Midway through my fortieth year, I reached a point where the balance of the past and all it contained seemed to outweigh the future, my mind so full of things said and not said, done and undone, I no longer understood how to move forward'
May is at a crossroads. Although her career as a gardener for the university is flourishing, the rest of her life has narrowed to a parched routine. Her father is elderly, her brother estranged, and she keeps her neighbours at arm's length. The missing element, she realises, might be friendship. As May sets off on a journey to visit four neglected friends one-by-one, she holds herself (and them) to humorously high standards, while at home she begins to confront the pain of her past and imagine for herself a different kind of future. May's quest becomes an exploration of the power, and perhaps limits, of modern friendship.
Advance Praise
'An engaging and compassionate portrait of how a root-bound, constricted life can begin to bloom. Drawing inspiration from mythic sources, Kane explores the power of friendship and of our connection to the natural world. Her descriptions of plants are transporting'
MADELINE MILLER
'An elegant and deeply moving meditation on friendship, family, and life on earth. Rules for Visiting is a wonderful novel'
EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL
'Jessica Francis Kane's precise and moving Rules For Visiting is an altogether new sort of friendship novel, one about friendships stretched to their limits over time and space, the sort of friendships so many of us count as our closest. Kane's gift for describing beauty and loneliness, the real stuff of life, is unparalleled'
EMMA STRAUB
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781783784646 |
| PRICE | £12.99 (GBP) |
Featured Reviews
Siobhan D, Reviewer
Rules for Visiting is a novel about friendship, a meditative novel and focused on travel and home. May's life is a series of routines: she lives with her elderly father, doesn't see her brother, and doesn't really talk to her neighbours. Though she enjoys her gardening career at the local university, she feels she needs something more, and some paid leave sparks off a chance to revisit some old friendships. As May visits her friends one by one, she reflects on their lives and her own, comparing classic literature and modern communication as she searches for what friendship is.
This is a calming sort of read, light and quirky but with some real meaning sown throughout. It has a precise and distinctive style, reflecting May's thought processes, but leaving gaps for the reader to notice her loneliness and what she isn't saying. The plant and book references are another distinctive feature, again very much linked to May's character but also about how we use different points of reference to track our lives and our friendships.
Rules for Visiting is a quietly quirky book that looks at human connections and dealing with the past and the present. Maybe fittingly, it would make a good book to keep in a spare room or give to a visiting friend: a quick, understated yet moving novel that makes you think about friendship across time.
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