Defenestrate

by Renee Branum

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE

An exuberant, wildly inventive debut about a young woman fascinated by her ancestors' legendary "falling curse" and trying to keep her own family from falling apart.

Marta and her twin brother Nick have always been haunted and fascinated by an ancestral legend that holds that members of their family are doomed to various types of falls. And when their own family collapses in the wake of a revelation and a resulting devastating fight with their Catholic mother, the twins move to Prague, the city in which their “falling curse” began. There, Marta and Nick try to forge a new life for themselves. But their ties to the past and each other prove difficult to disentangle, and when they ultimately return to their midwestern home and Nick falls from a balcony himself, Marta is forced to confront the truths they've hidden from each other and themselves.

Ingeniously and unforgettably narrated by Marta as she reflects on all the ways there are to fall--from defenestration in nineteenth century Prague to the pratfalls of her childhood idol Buster Keaton, from falling in love to falling midflight from an airplane-- Defenestrate is a deeply original, gorgeous novel about the power of stories and the strange, malleable bonds that hold families together.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, Contemporary, Adult, LGBT, Novels

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 25, 2022

About the author

Renée Branum graduated with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Montana in 2017. She received an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2013 where she was a Truman Capote Fellow and a recipient of the Prairie Lights Jack Leggett Fiction Prize. Renée’s fiction has appeared in Blackbird, Tampa Review, The Georgia Review, and Narrative Magazine. Her nonfiction essays have been published in Fields Magazine, Texas Review, True Story, Chicago Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, Hobart, and The Gettysburg Review. Her essay “Certainty” was awarded first prize in The Los Angeles Review’s Fall 2016 Nonfiction Contest. Her essay “Bolt” received first place recognition in The Florida Review’s 2017 Editors’ Awards. She received two Pushcart nominations for work published in 2017. She currently lives and writes in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is working to complete a PhD.

Reviews

[Meike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I fell in love with the fantastic title of Branum's debut novel, but I had a very hard time to get through it, because it is such a hermetic, interior text that relies on evocations of moods and lyrical language - and don't get me wrong, I usually love experimental writing, it's just that this mosaic is largely a quirky l'art pour l'art effort, and thus, it's not for me.

Branum tells the story of twins Marta (also the narrator) and Nick who grew up in a family haunted by superstition: Their great-great-grandfather pushed a stonemason to his death from a church tower, an now their Czech Catholic mother (you know, Defenestrations of Prague yada yada yada) believes that the family is cursed. Nick's coming out as gay changes the family dynamic, and after the death of their father, the twins reside in Prague for several years, trying to learn more about family history. Then, back in the Midwest, Nick falls out of a winodw. The whole thing is ornamented with references to Buster Keaton and Bohumil Hrabal.

The story jumps in time and is interspersed with episodes of historic falls from heights, psychological and philosophical ruminations about accidents, fate, homphobia, substance abuse, co-dependence and family secrets meander in various passages. It was a great mistake to try this on audio, as you probably need to be able to see the text in order to appreciate the composition of the many fragments.

While I would maintain that the whole thing is overwritten and that the premise is a lot better than the execution, the problem here is also taste: The meandering and the suffocating interiority drive a reader like me nuts.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is normal, I tell myself, to wonder about how things could have been different. If we had stayed in Prague, if I’d allowed myself to love Morena; if Nick and I had never left home, if my father had lived a little bit longer, if I could have prevented my brother from falling; if the stonemason, at the moment when Jiří came up behind him, had turned just a second before, had later walked home at nightfall and crossed the bridge into Old Town, and, dark and dusty, painted on the sky, had seen the light drifting low, offering itself to his eyes, the sun shrinking down quickly like a coin dropped into a hat.

The story is told in first person by an American Marta. She and her twin brother Nick have grown up with the family story of their (maternal) great great grandfather Jiří. He was an architect in late 19th Century Prague who pushed a stonemason to death (for an affair with Jiří’s young daughter) – leading he and his family to feel to the American Midwest and leaving some form of not quite curse but more an obsession towards falling (and tendency to resulting tragedy) to his future descendants.

For Marta and Nick as they grew up it seemed that this more manifested itself as a Buster Keaton-inspired shared love for pratfalls, although Marta herself seems drawn to heights.

As the story in front of us unfolds we see it is being narrated by Marta in the US, with Nick in hospital after a bad but supposedly accidental fall from his apartment window (the explanation for this is so like the death of Nick’s favourite author - Bohumil Hrabal - that she suspects it was deliberate). In hospital he wants to talk about their time together in Prague – where they went for a period after a family row and immediate tragedy caused a seemingly mutually irrevocable breach with their deeply Christian mother. While there, Nick’s behaviour became increasingly reckless but Marta too had her issues and on their return to the US (but not to the family home) it is increasingly unclear who has the real problem.

A really quite impressive debut novel which simultaneously manages to be:

Quirky and inventive: In concept (with a family seemingly drawn inexorably to falling via an ancestral legend); in references (how many books have as their two main inspirations Buster Keaton and Bohumil Hrabal); and in style (a series of short vignettes alongside a story which plays out in across three linear narratives in three locations – two in the US, one in Prague)

Intellectually stimulating: by throwing off a myriad of connections riffing around the idea of falling. As well as the repeated and lengthy references to Buster Keaton (his films, his technique for falling, and most of all the various family stories that surround his birth, infancy and childhood and which were an essential part of his persona) and to the the writing, life (and especially the death) of Hrabal, we have a series of other links. Of course the title refers to the Prague defenestration of 1618 (which lead directly to the Thurty Years War), and here are just a few of the other stories featured in the vignettes (sometimes just once, but often referred to repeatedly): the fall of Lucifer; the famous “most beautiful suicide” picture by Robert Wiles of Evelyn Frances McHale; Saint John of Nepomuk (and his statue on the Charles Bridge); the Italian 1970s cartoon “Mr Linea”; Paul’s overlong sermon in Acts and the fall, death and restoration to life of Eutychus; Juliane Kopecky and her fall from an airliner over Peru; the mountaineering accident of Simon Yates and Joe Simpson; the death of the Indian magician Mandrake. And these links are not just described in enough detail to peak the unfamiliar reader’s interest enough for a quick You Tube, Google or Wikipedia search, but are often used to draw out wider truths and to link back to the main story. And even on top of that are copious references to bible stories and to pop music and other song lyrics.

Hard hitting: Dealing with difficult subjects like mental illness and alcoholism

Complex in its dynamics: One thing I admired in what was relatively short and packed novel was how the dynamics between the three family members shifts and evolves over time and is left at the end, not resolved but at least with the possibility of telling a new family story.

Really insightful into the human condition: Particularly families and the stories they tell themselves and how those stories both render apart and sustain families.

And on top of that it is even an excellent examination of (fraternal) twin relationships

Definitely recommended and one book you will not want to throw out of a window

I’m realizing … that I’ve loved very little, really, through the years. I’ve loved Keaton and his work. I’ve loved the slow, reckless seep of booze—clouding you up inside so you can be a stranger to yourself again. I’ve loved the stories we keep close because we are afraid of ourselves, of our blood, of our own frailty. I’ve loved the tiny worlds my father made— treetops delicate as spun sugar and hills like an infant’s knees beneath a blanket, and a town that he lit with LEDs smaller than dewdrops ……….. And I’ve loved Prague, I realize now. I’ve loved its tattered richness, its constant drizzle of good light—gold during the day, purple beneath the lampposts at night. I’ve loved, in a way, that it didn’t want me—that it drove me back to the things I thought I knew, with its cold and relentless beauty. I’ve always loved Nick too, of course. Perhaps all those other things were just a different form of the love I had for him. Perhaps there wasn’t really room for much else besides him. Perhaps the world will always seem just a little too large or too small, once you’ve shared a womb with someone. Yes, I think that is what we’re up against. That’s our struggle.

My thanks to Penguin Random House for an ARC via NetGalley

[nastya · Rating 2 out of 5]

One thing the city of Prague is famous for: throwing men out windows. The word for this is defenestration. Tourists can climb the narrow stairs to the room where Catholic noblemen were defenestrated because of a religious dispute in 1618.

Let’s make a complement sandwich

The writing is lovely, albeit very overwritten. But since this is a debut I guess it's fine.

There's no story or plot, it doesn’t have characters, not really. We were not going anywhere, kept circling around twin heroes being sad in the most cliche ways. She’s drinking and he’s drinking, there's mental health issues that are not explored. Self destruction and melancholy. They are not people as much but characters in the moody movie with no depth.

The idea that their family has a curse of falling to death was interesting, sadly it never went anywhere. Also because it’s a theme, we get stories of famous suicides and also accidental ones in this family sprinkled with famous "fallers" like Buster Keaton, Bohumil Hrabal, Evelyn McHale. These were the best parts that were interesting to read.

It’s definitely a mood piece, the mood being sadness and regret. Unfortunately it’s hard to maintain the whole novel on one mood.

Something something Prague. It looks like it's supposed to be important, but it doesn’t really matter, trust me. The city is there for its Central European melancholic flavor.

And I’ve loved Prague, I realize now. I’ve loved its tattered richness, its constant drizzle of good light—gold during the day, purple beneath the lampposts at night. I’ve loved, in a way, that it didn’t want me—that it drove me back to the things I thought I knew, with its cold and relentless beauty.

Ok, not really a sandwich cause I don't have anything positive to close it with. The writing sometimes was lovely?...

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tender series of vignettes on sibling relationships, family lore, and the ways in which stories shape who we are and who we believe we can become. Succinct, wistful, and with the different stages of understanding and acceptance that come with trauma, enlightenment, and companionship, Defenestrate is an imaginative nod to our inheritance as storytellers, and our right to create something new from the legacies we are tied to.

[Jenny Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dark and character-driven story. A bit sad, and a bit triggering if you have suicidal ideation. Just a tiny warning. 3.5 stars

[fatma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

"When I picture the city now, I see it from overhead. Bird's-eye. A long, lonely aerial view looking down onto orange clay rooftiles curved like shells of snails. The city shrinks, small enough to be covered with a palm--my palm, my twin brother's. We both seem to remember those years from above, as if we were often sailing out over the streets that opened up into squares, the ice skating rink dusted blue, that high clocktower with its windows sealed shut, the bridge long spine of black bone straining across the bread-colorued water. And I guess it's true that the city rises, tiered, made up of slopes and heights, spires and hilltops and towers--all these high places you could cimb, to get a better view of things, and I guess it's aso true that I was always climbing them."

Defenestrate is a short, moving novel that is about, as its title implies, falling. The premise is simple: the main character and her twin brother come from a family that is seemingly plagued with a falling curse, all manner of aunts, cousins, and uncles falling from buildings, ladders, railings--you name it. The novel, then, is a series of reflections on this theme. Written in short vignettes, it examines the many forms and instances of falling, personal, historical, and conceptual. And I think in concentrating its energy on this particular theme, Defenestrate is able to really cleverly develop both its story and characters. The theme gives the novel's very short chapters a cohesiveness that they wouldn't have otherwise had, in addition to being an effective conduit for developing its characters.

"There's a superstition in our family about falling--a kind of tight-lipped joke that's no longer a joke because it's happened too often over the years: cousins leaning against railings that wouldn't hold their weight, uncles losing their footing while cleaning leaf debris from slimy gutters, aunts toppling from ladders, their spines folding up on themselves like coat hangers. Something in our bodies wants to fall, blood magnetized to pavement, iron and concrete greeting each other across a stretch of air, the downward plunge and crack, like a pink Easter egg dropped from a window--we splinter that easily."

More than anything, I think I was just really taken with this idea of a falling curse. Falling, in Defenestrate, is about a lot of things--perspective, Buster Keaton, suicide--but it's also more critically about narrative: what kind of narrative emerges from this supposed family falling curse? who gets to tell this narrative over the generations? how do the individual characters take up this family narrative for themselves?

But this is not just a thematically focused novel. As broad as it is in its exploration of falling, it is also a very insular novel: all of its reflections come from one character, Marta, who becomes increasingly isolated over the course of the novel. The more she becomes fixated on the theme of falling and its various personal and historical reverberations, the more she retreats within herself, sinking further and further into a kind of obsession with the theme. And at its heart, Defenestrate is really about Marta: the vignettes we get are not just about falling, but also about her; what she decides to tell us about falling speaks to her own mental state, too, to how adrift and lonely she is.

All of this is to say, I really enjoyed this novel. I thought the thematic exploration was fascinating, and I loved how it became increasingly tied to Marta's character development as the story went on. (I was also drawn to its focus on a brother-sister relationship, and in particular how codependency can manifest within that kind of dynamic.) That being said, I feel like a lot of the things I enjoyed about this book--mainly the short chapters and the writing--I also had qualms about. First, the writing, which was, on the whole, just great. From page one, I was immediately impressed with Branum's writing, which is so evocative even as it is concise and pithy. Branum can write a damn good simile, and there are plenty of examples within the novel that speak to that. But--and here come the qualms--there are just too many similes in this book. I don't generally mind similes, except that when there are so many of them--almost on every single page--they start to get a bit distracting and also just extremely noticeable.

As for the short chapters, I also liked and didn't like them. On the one hand, the short chapters lend Defenestrate a kind of propulsive quality in that they make it go by so quickly. On the other hand, though, they also make it feel a bit fragmented as a narrative. Not so fragmented, because the theme does a good job of tying together all the novel's vignettes, but I think I would've liked more of a plot maybe, or at least some longer, more substantial chapters interspersed with the more brief conceptual ones.

On the whole, though, I thought Defenestrate was a great novel. It's a slight novel, and a bit of a forgettable one too, but it still manages to be very moving, and, barring some minor issues, competently written.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the idea behind this book, loved the great title, and found the prose very impressive, if highly stylized. But there's little if any plotting, zero forward momentum to the narrative, and I found it impossible to engage with the characters in any meaningful way. It seemed like a writing exercise more than a novel.

That said, Branum is clearly a talented writer, so I will be curious about whatever she does next.

[Lydia Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Renee Branum is a very good author. I have never read any of her books, but I will be looking for more of her books to read. I am going to recommend this to my book club to read. I think it will make for an interesting discussion. Moody and descriptive rather than plot-driven, Branum's narrative jumps through time without missing a step. While readers may guess the secrets Marta is careful to conceal from herself, the collage of striking scenes and reflections offers frequent delights. A real page turner. I want to reread this book as I found so much to savor. Thanks Renee Branum. You're are brilliant.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic debut!

Our speech is so full of falling. It follows us around all day long.
We fall down laughing, fall apart, fall away. We fall prey to things. Things fall by the wayside. We fall behind, fall flat on our faces, fall back on things. We fall in line, fall from grace, fall in step, fall in love, fall on our swords. We fall out with our friends. We fall afoul of the law. Our words fall on deaf ears. We fall down dead.
We say, “Let matters fall as they may.”
We say, “Things fall apart.”

⇝ 4.5 stars

[Jerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m glad this came together so well in the end, because there was some amazing writing here but I had trouble with the story until the end. It’s a very internally driven story about a woman trying to grapple with her father’s sudden death, her brother’s maybe suicide attempt, and a mythical family history that may hide more than it reveals.

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m the first to properly review this book. Oh, the weight of responsibility. Ok, let’s…
This was a book I selected almost entirely by the title, a word I strangely adore. Although, to be fair, the concept was also intriguing and the Czech Republic providing location as a character for a lot of the story was nice too.
This is a story of a family that tends to have a…let’s say complicated relationship with gravity. They take tumbles and spills, they stumble and they careen. They believe themselves to be doomed by an ancient ancestral legend, but are they? Or is just life itself that causes them to fall, time and again?
The story follows the main protagonists, twins named Marta and Nick, the youngest in their fall prone family line. After their highly religious mother banishes Nick upon finding out he’s gay, the twins relocate to Prague and find themselves drifting through the ancient city, failing to make any real connections outside of one another. And then Nick falls, like so many of his ancestors before him, and Marta stays by his side until he recuperates.
And meanwhile both of them, especially Marta reminisces, heavily, about their past, their family’s past and so on. It’s a novel comprised of reminiscences, a rear view mirror of a novel primarily, a highly literary and almost poetic in style narrative of familial connections and quotidian disconnects of life.
For some reason with a title and a cover being as they are, I expected a quirkier read. This wasn’t quirky. It was serious, heavy, somber. Much like the family in the book, the narrative had its own gravity, it seems. It invites you in and it glides along at a decent speed, strangely compelling, so that you can fall for it but not necessarily in love with it.
It’s poignant, its sadness is lovely, but there’s a certain remove here, a distance between you and the characters, characters that are not exactly easy to emotionally engage with or even like. They have that special twin connection, that almost presupposes an exclusion of outsiders. They also take a really long time to figure their sh*t out, like proper millennials.
Prague comes across as bleak and depressing. It might just be the twins projecting. Or it might be the old world’s weight as experienced by the new world tourists. Which is essentially what they are, Marta barely has enough language to get around, they stay, they graze, but they don’t engage.
Overall, there’s a definitive loveliness to the style that might not always be there for the characters, the writing is so eloquent, so…writerly. It’s definitely a literary work and it knows it. It isn’t pompous with it, though. And every so often there’s an absolutely striking turn of phrase. There was one sentence that absolutely blew me away with its beauty. But overall, it wasn’t a blow you away book. An interesting literary family drama, certainly an accomplished debut, but kind of muted, too rambling, too meditative, too enamored with its own concept to properly wow.
Much like a proper fall, though, it had a proper velocity and sped by very quickly. Thanks Netgalley.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely one of the most ambitious debut novels I have ever read -- the vignette style, the metaphor of falling/the family curse, the first-person narrative -- all very hard to pull off even individually, and Branum does them all skillfully at once! This novel is beautifully written, and invites the reader to wonder what life is but a series of small stories, warped and twisted and made anew (for better or worse) by the years, refusals, defiances, and small gestures of hope that we and our ancestors pile up on top of one another. The narrative belongs to a set of twins, but told through the perspective of one: Marta. Marta and her brother Nick are millennials, and I think that, as a millennial myself, we struggle to understand what history really is, and what it's trying to tell us, and what we can do with it: our own smaller history, and History at large. There are so many disconnects, competing narratives, counter-arguments to just about everything, while our own family histories are often mysterious cones of silence punctuated by myth. It is a strange tension to live with. There isn't an answer here, but by then end of the novel, the reader leaves Marta in the clarity of a real day's light. Go out there, future reader, and see it for yourself!

[Nadine in California]

DNF page 65-ish. This book is inventive and quirky in story and format, but it also feels like exactly the style of inventive and quirky that MFA teachers and students encourage each other to write. It makes the programs seem like mutual admiration societies that think they encourage creativity more than they really do. So even though I can't remember reading another book exactly like it, there's still something about the spirit of it that feels forced and unoriginal. Or like it's trying too hard. But I can understand why other readers can appreciate it.....

[Fraser Simons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told in three linear parts—interspersed with historical context around defenestration itself—the story of twins Marta and Nick is told at different points in their life. A lot of this is for information control and pacing, but it’s also fairly novel. Primarily, the story seeks to interrogate a family mythos around defenestration; the family curse that strikes at seemingly everyone; claiming lives or else merely taking a toll. The story has infested Marta, the narrator, who spirals throughout the story in her efforts to help her brother, who has taken a fall, deal with the psychological aspects of it in a meandering, frankly tedious ongoing bar scene where she waxes on about various stories, and distant past, which has alienated the twins from their mother. Begging the question: Where is the father?

It’s a successful, if barely, for me, format. But has some serious middle book syndrome. Reoccurring plot beats, narrative tension deflating with every reoccurrence of the same point made differently, and uneven prose, made this a bit of a slog. Unfortunate, since the start was actually quite gripping and it does land the ending relatively nicely. The theme is enmeshed in the many narratives. The characters are believable and have descent arcs. It is substantive. It also has structural issues. Overall, a mixed bag, for me.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An inventive, original and unusual novel about all the different ways there are of falling. Twins Marta and Nick feel that they are doomed by an old family legend when an ancestor was pushed to his death out of a window in 1895 in Prague, that city famous for its defenestration of 1618. Obsessed with this fear they become equally obsessed with the films of Buster Keaton and his legendary falls. With asides relating to many other real-life falls, such as that from planes, the first person narrative follows Nick and Marta as they visit Prague when their mother’s rejection of Nick’s homosexuality makes living at home untenable. It’s a serious novel which deals with serious issues, from mental health to alcoholism, from religion to family bonds. It’s ambitious in its scope, with many narrative threads, all of which are expertly handled and cleverly woven together. A great piece of writing and a haunting tale.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can fall down, fall in, fall out, fall through, fall behind—well, you can see how “fall” is a diverse word. But “defenestrate?” You can’t really stretch that one out, unless you’re talking how far down out of that window, or who is being thrown. It’s always been one of my favorite words. It’s so specific, the image, a person and a window, and perhaps a hand sneaking out from the back. So of course I had to read this book, about a family curse that goes back a century, to an ancestor in Prague (a city where defenestration is apparently popular!) who gave a “gentle push” to a Roma stonemason. And there it began, the curse, and the burden now, in the 21st century, weighs upon a set of twins, Marta and Nick, Midwesterners who travel to Prague to try and figure out the web of this curse, because each generation brings on a new defenestration. After living in Prague for a while, Marta and Nick return to the Midwest, where Nick falls out of a balcony and is seriously injured. Oh, and their hero? Buster Keaton. I inevitably fell for this novel!

The tropes of this novel are familiar—trust, family bonds, and the myths held strong through storytelling. “Fall” becomes an extended metaphor, a symbol of the rift and the wreckage of dysfunctional families, and the desire for an unconditional love and sense of safety that all children want from their parents. Unfortunately, Marta and Nick have been denied the security and unequivocal love they so desperately want. And, at this point, Marta is worried that Nick’s fall wasn’t an accident. This tragic heritage is destroying their lives, turning a family into a cautionary tale. As Marta narrates, the reader gains insight into their fragile and friable bonds, and the secrets and fears that shape them. As the novel progresses, the power of storytelling reveals itself as the window to healing. Renée Branum’s work invites the reader to freefall into the beauty of her prose and narrative.

“Story can only open a need for more story, falling backward and forward across time, trying to map these histories that never quite reach a final understanding.”

Don’t look for a bracing plot or an action-packed story. It’s character-driven, much of it interior, the prose delicately and elegantly apprehending the emotional heft of the characters. Nick, Marta, and their mother will often leap from the pages, so well-drawn were they, and psychologically realistic. Too, the city of Prague comes alive, the precision of its streets, lights, hills, and medieval atmosphere reminding me of my previous trip there. Not many writers capture Prague as well as Branum. At times, I wished for a more nimble pace, but I felt a satisfying leap of excitement and affection for the surging of the narrative and the nicely woven finale. It doesn’t end with a fall; you still have to land.

Thank you to Bloomsbury publishers for sending me a finished copy for review.

[Robert Wechsler]

I expected to be the perfect reader for this novella, especially in my knowledge of and interest in the Czech aspects of the work, including the amazingly Czech concept of defenestration. But I felt I was too old for this novel, especially with respect to the kind of quirkiness of the forms and characters. For me, the novella was more interesting in its conception than in its achievement, but there are some wonderful moments.

One thing the book did was make me realize how long it had been since I’d read Bohumil Hrabal, which made it easy to pick my next read.

[Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Defenestrate is a novel about the stories we tell ourselves and those we tell others. The myths we build around ourselves. Branum asks, how do narratives live within our bodies? How do they evolve over seasons, years, generations?

Read my full review in the February issue of Columbia’s In the Margins!

[Tracey Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Defenestrate is a fantastic word. According to Wikipedia, “Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window.” Predictably, a novel with such a title is about falling, both literally and figuratively. Marta and her twin brother Nick come from a family with a history of calamity, beginning with a mysterious altercation between one of their ancestors and a stonemason. Following a tragic incident at home, Marta and Nick temporarily relocate to Prague, to try and make sense of everything. But on their return to the US, Nick succumbs to his familial fate, and things begin to unravel.

This is an incredibly compelling story about so many things; family, codependence, self-fulfilling prophecies, silent film star Buster Keaton. The central characters of Marta and Nick are so likable; as a reader, I almost felt as if I became a part of their somewhat dysfunctional relationship. Marta will do anything for Nick, even sacrificing her own happiness. Their relationship with their mother is a entirely believable one; her “christian” values render her incapable to accept Nick’s homosexuality.

Defenestrate is also an ode to Prague. Anyone who has had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful city will relate to the descriptions of the ethereal place. Branum clearly has a special relationship with Prague, and her love for the city shines through in her prose.

The novel is broken up into small chapters, and some may find the frequent changes in direction challenging. Personally, I found everything about Defenestrate quite hypnotic. It is a small, warm novel, about familiar, and familial topics. The story unfolds beautifully, and Branum really captures a sense of place. A gem of a novel.

[Morvling Bookink · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful prose book that could only be written by someone incredibly poetically minded and detail oriented. Expected it to be terrible but I had to read a book called Defenestrate, and it exceeded expectations by far!!
It's quite dense at times, because of the lots of detail, but it's okay in a way, I like it in that way.
It has a bit of a lack of pace which makes it looser but again it works that way.

I loved the unconventional organisation of it - prose, but not in chapters, more in pieces, which are individually named and all very varied in length. Like poems, but in prose.
Plus that it didn't have a plotline - it simply investigated one concept, one metaphor, and found laters upon layers of facets about it, like a disco ball, all the mirror are the same but reflect different things.

I usually don't like real-life references in fiction books, but you can tell the author has qualifications in creative non-fiction, and it is interesting knowing things that are real in a fictional context.

Towards the end it dragged out a lot but it's her debut and I think it's my fault for taking too long to read it.

Great representation of substance abuse and the ignorance of mental health problems which forces faith into people to cope.

A huge metaphor on the power of falling.

[alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It wouldn't have to be God, I realize now. That's only what my mother chooses to call it: this faith you can have in your own life, in the unseen shapes the world sometimes takes, in the stories you tell yourself to gain back trust in your own under-standing, in your mind's cliffs and valleys-the stories you tell yourself to prove that you aren't so fragile that you can't continue.”

hey, maybe picking up a book from the library just because it has a pretty cover and an intriguing title is a pretty damn good idea. this book was so unique. first, i’ve read very few novels with sibling dynamics at the forefront. second, this novel is about how powerful stories can be, and how stories are often created to mask the darker truth—the truth which is difficult to look directly at. this book does not receive as much attention as it deserves for how beautiful and fascinating the story is.

pre-read:

went to the library a few hours ago and took a picture of this just because the cover was pretty. got home and looked it up and it sounds exactly like my type of book. i will now kick myself until my next library trip

[Vivian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Corny plot and tacky writing. I understand why this book has been in the unabridged sale section for years

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐢𝐫, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤, 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐠𝐠 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰- 𝐰𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐲.

There is a curse in twins Marta and Nick’s superstitious family, one who seems to be in freefall after their mother reacts to a reality she cannot accept. The ill fate began back in Prague with their great-grandfather Jiří, and all over a ‘gentle push’ that left blood on his hands, ending his reputation, career and forced him to move with his wife and children to the American Midwest. Moving, however, has not chased away their odd inheritance, it is only a matter of time before a fall will come but when? Who? Where? They only know they are doomed to plunge, in one way or another, and there is no end to the creative manner in which one can fall.

When the siblings move back to Prague, the origins of their family curse, they hope to navigate past the dangers and make sense of their sordid family tale. It is also an escape from their mother, making their own bond iron clad, always a family of two. But what does falling even mean? Can one only fall from great heights? How much of their fears are built upon family lore, how many stories are hard facts? What about their relationship with each other? Is prayer, like their mother believes, truly a weapon against misfortune? Nick has spent his life preparing to fall, not unlike a professional. Since childhood, Marta and Nick greatly admired silent film star and physical comedian Buster Keaton, who spent his whole life conquering falls and knocks life heaped upon him. There is something whimsical about his career that lends Marta and Nick faith, that it’s not all doom, that falling is survivable. Marta herself has always craved heights, brazen with her climbing because their is no better view than bird’s eye. Reckless by comparison to her careful brother, almost challenging fate to do it already! Within the tale are stories of other people who have survived incredible plummets and historical figures tossed from windows, a popular Prague practice long ago. The years they spent in Prague are like a dream and upon their return to the United States, the curse strikes, Nick has fallen. Were they so drunk with happiness when it was just the two of them in the old city? Was their time away armor against the curse? Did returning to the ‘scene of their ancestors crime’ lend them knowledge of their own lives? Why did Nick fall? What is the meaning?

It is about fragility, the blood running through our veins that is a continuation of those who came before us, and the fiction we create to chase away the monsters we can’t see nor understand. It is about filling in the gaps with magic, taking control of the narrative forced upon us and our children. A story of gravity as reality, loneliness, love that is just out of our grasp, holding on, letting go, grief, the search for meaning in the mysterious, bonds that include/exclude, all the falls that happen and the ones that never do. Where is the danger really coming from?

Marta cannot prevent catastrophe but it is Nick’s fall that may change everything and clear the air of mystery in their lives. This is an odd, beautiful novel. It is a whirlwind of emotions, sometimes funny and other times heartbreaking. The word defenestrate is a clever title and a history lesson for me. I was absolutely hooked. Yes, read it!

Publication Date: January 25, 2022

Bloomsbury USA

[Marcus (Lit_Laugh_Luv) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim and was very pleasantly surprised by this. The book focuses on twins Marta and Nick as they navigate their early 20s and form their sense of identity. Looming over them is a familial curse, originating from their great great grandfather pushing someone out a window to their death. Since then, their family has been plagued with untimely deaths by falling - and the perceptions of this alleged curse form a lot of the complex dynamics between family members in the book.

The book is told in a series of vignettes, with broader commentary on mental health and suicide, intergenerational trauma, religion, homophobia and co-dependence. Every character is acutely aware of their own mortality and perceived destiny to experience an untimely death; for Marta and Nick's mother, this prompts her to become a devout Christian and her rigid religious reviews ultimately generate a lot of the conflict in the novel. I really enjoyed this in execution, and despite the simple underlying concept here there was a surprising amount of reflection and development for the characters.

The book references several real-world events (notably the likes of Buster Keaton, Bohumil Hrabal, Evelyn Frances McHale, and Juliane Koepcke) and does an excellent job dissecting the language and meaning of falling. There's a lot of parallels drawn between vulnerability and the act of falling, and the imagery here is really interesting. I saved several quotes when reading this because the writing was so vivid and interesting.

Ultimately, this is a charming little book that does an excellent job exploring death, mental health, and family. I hesitate to give this 5 stars given there's not really a ton of plot to comment on - it's an excellent character study and cool concept, but I didn't feel entirely satisfied by the conclusion. Nonetheless, I'd definitely still recommend this!

[James B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for the ebook. Marta and her twin brother Nick move to Prague, where their family was originally from. But they are not there to visit relatives. They’re escaping the blowout arguments with their catholic mother. Marta also is obsessed with a family history that includes a seeming curse of falling to your death. She traces the family falls and becomes obsessed with incredible falls through history where people have survived. From buildings, escaping from jails, from the sides of mountains and even from airplanes. Her hero is Buster Keaton, the man who survived more falls than anyone. When they move back to America and Nick lands in the hospital from his own fall, Marta feels that maybe Nick is giving in to the family curse, but learns from their mother that families are more complicated than the every day stories we tell.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ambitious character-driven debut features delightfully poetic turns of phrase, framing life as a bit reckless, and at times almost unnavigable. It's a clever and emotionally fraught story, highlighting how we keep tethered to this world and to each other without breaking.

[Anjana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose this book because I had come across the title and its peculiar meaning a couple of times in the last few months. I am not one to ignore such occurrences, and I decided to give it a shot.
The plot is not the kind that I usually enjoy, but the writing is dark and deep. The latter is not a combination I highly recommend, but it was easy to read even with the darker overtones.
The author created a very vivid character in our main narrator. Marta is a twin, something that colours and influences a lot in her life. She thinks things through a little too much. She also finds their family history of 'falling' very influential, and it casts a pall over her every waking action, and sometimes her subconsciousness as well.
There are many parts that makeup Marta's whole. Each piece is revealed in a back and forth passage of time. I will not be going into the details because the revelations and the way it is laid out will probably be the main reason people will pick this book up in the first place.
No one is happy, truly satisfied during the entirety of the book; I almost would not have liked it if not for the introduction of something I will call twists for the lack of a better word. There are two. One might count as the main basis of the entire story, but I was drawn more to the other. The brother and his part changed how I looked at the entire book. It rarely happens when I have made up my mind about any particular story and am biding my time to the end that something changes my feelings. It is an otherwise short chapter that injects a new direction to the content (and I am still not talking of the actual 'truth' that should have borne this weight, but I kind of saw that coming).
I would recommend it to anyone who does not mind travelling through the darker despair filled journey through a character's mind and the kind of book that does not necessarily have a conclusion.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

[Molly]

A family friend mailed me this book for Valentine’s Day simply because she remembered Defenestrate being my favorite word as a kid, and while I still think the book might’ve originated as a dare/gimmick (like, “bet you won’t write a whole serious moody MFA novel titled Defenestrate”), it ended up being a sweet story. Positives: It's well written in that classic MFA way with lots of em-dashes and unconventional metaphors. It was fun to read a book centered on siblinghood. Branum does a great job of evoking the sense of nostalgia for the past so deep that it circles around to being nostalgia for the present. And like Charles Yu in Interior Chinatown, Branum uses “Take Me Home, Country Roads” to ground a central metaphor (in that case, the shared feeling of homesickness across cultural contexts; in this one, nostalgia for a place that could have been home); both authors have completely convinced me that John Denver references should become a staple of the modern novel.

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something soothing about Branum's prose and I enjoyed my time with it a lot. I'm something of a sucker for stylized prose (possibly because I completely lack the skills to produce any myself) so I don't think anyone will be surprised that I enjoyed the prose in this book. Aside from the prose it features a generally more contemplative vibe and a heavily character driven story, if you're in the mood for that you might just like this one too.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

delightful and so beyond poetic. i did not expect the vignette setup but it was a nice stylistic choice

“I keep coming close to reminding him: it wasn’t all sweet. It wasn’t all Christmas in July. But that’s not what he needs to hear now.” (97)

“It isn’t always healthy (how much of living is good for one’s health anyway?)—but it is what it is.” (166)