How to Leave a Country

by Cris Mazza

A PEN/Nelson Algren award winner, this intensely absorbing first novel of an artist told by his lover questions accepted notions of love, reality, and imagination. "A portrait of the artist as a young man in our times. Highly recommended."-- Library Journal "Engaging and innovative."-- Publishers Weekly

Genres: Fiction

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Cris Mazza is the author of a dozen books of fiction, mostly recently Waterbaby (Soft Skull Press 2007). Her other titles include the critically acclaimed Is It Sexual Harassment Yet?, and the PEN Nelson Algren Award winning How to Leave a Country. She also has a collection of personal essays, Indigenous: Growing Up Californian. Mazza has been the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and three Illinois Arts Council literary awards. A native of Southern California, Mazza grew up in San Diego County. Currently she lives 50 miles west of Chicago. She is a professor in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago "

Reviews

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Digging deeper into the 90s FC2 Black Ice catalog. This wasn't specifically a Black Ice book, but other work from Mazza around that time was, and I wanted to start with a novel. The result: too narratively had to pin down to become boring, but also too seemingly haphazard to really become involving either. A narrator, unable to recall elements of her own life, recounts interleaved episodes from her lover's instead. Without this format, it could almost be collection of stories anyway, since various life episodes stand nearly alone here, and for a while I wondered why this was a novel, a narrative, a congruent set of material suggested to be one story. Then a slight-of-hand of perspective that I've never seen done anywhere else reveals late purpose and cohesion, an admirable shift. On the other hand, this has a completely miserable climax that nonetheless didn't cause me to feel much of anything for any of the people involved, which doesn't seem like a total success either.

[Jennifer Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like an off beat book, you will love this book. I have read it about 10 times and always find something new in it.