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A Read Between the Spines May 2024 Most Anticipated New Book Release

“The narrative moves like the river that runs through the town: gentle at first, then harsh and unforgiving. At times dark, at other times beautiful, Kuebler’s debut shines in its precision.” —Kirkus, starred review

“Kuebler debuts with a pitch-perfect narrative of a small Vermont town and the intersecting lives of its residents… This is iridescent.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Kuebler’s prose is visual, astute, and rich. Family drama, mystery, and subtle foreshadowing carry readers headlong to the conclusion.” —Booklist

“In spare prose, this debut novel follows the inhabitants of a small hamlet in Vermont, tracing their shifting, tenuous relationships as tightly held secrets come to light.” —New York Times Book Review

“Like a master weaver, Kuebler threads her characters’ wants and needs, their backstories and observations, line by line, as if the novel were the warp and weft of a great loom. The resulting narrative is not only an inventive, emotionally engaging page turner, but also a metaphor for the resilience of the community that animates this subtle, surprising book.” —Maria Padian, Middlebury Magazine

“Kuebler mixes future dreams with dashed hopes, past tragedies with ones to come as she quietly builds tension. Fueled by local gossip from the post office and the teenage angst of the local girls, the stakes rise dangerously in this compelling debut.” —Melanie Fleishman, Bookstore Recs, The Center for Fiction

“All of these characters are distinctly human, faulty, struggling to figure out how to function in a rapidly changing world. They suffer from tragedies, past and present, fall in love, find a purpose, and overcome demons. They are not always likeable, their choices sometimes foolish, but they are trying. All of their stories are worth telling. All of their troubles are worth understanding.” —Sarah Pope, Addison Independent

“This narrative generosity is a function of her form. Liquid, Fragile, Perishable is told in epigrammatic paragraphs, spaced from each other so they arrive as vignettes. The form recalls Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen. Kuebler and Hansen’s styles differ, but their shared technique is notable: by isolating each paragraph as a disparate whole, she enables the reader to methodically accumulate senses of atmosphere and character.” —Nick Ripatrazone, Plough

“Kuebler succeeds in capturing the rhythms of small-town life, and her peculiar style — each sentence is an island unto itself, separated from its neighbors by a full break — seems to imply that the reader should take a deep breath between each thought, to pace themselves in order to truly feel the slow, yet inexorable passage of time that is practically palpable in a place like Glenville.” —Michael Patrick Brady, Boston Globe

“With her even-handed approach to creating a cast of characters, Kuebler offers a genuinely communal portrait. The fictional Glenville is a town that many Vermonters will recognize—and that readers from very different places will have many reasons to care about.” —Jim Schley, Seven Days

“A true-to-life, richly detailed American tale in the tradition of Sherwood Anderson, Willa Cather, and Thornton Wilder… Kuebler’s genius as a writer is to make readers believe that the harrowing story of Glenville, Vermont, is both their own and one essential for our time.” —Michael Collier, author of The Wild Mountain

“I’ve spent my life in towns like this, and so so much rings true—hard, sweet, right.” —Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont

“It was a delight to spend time in the world of this novel, with both its sadness and joy… Her wonderful characters, beautiful landscapes, and portrait of rural life will stay with me.” —Lydia Kiesling, author of Mobility

“Carolyn Kuebler’s superb ensemble narrative features post office clerks and recluses, yearning teens and missionary parents, budding criminals and trust funders who all inhabit a beautiful, struggling Vermont town. When the plot sets a romance and disappearance into motion, someone is to blame, but who? Part of Kuebler’s magic is that she offers no easy answers to this question, and leaves you pondering instead what will happen to these people, and what it takes for our rural communities to thrive and endure.” —Maria Hummel, author of Goldenseal and Still Lives