Window: Stories and Essays

by Nancy Jensen (2009)
softcover

What is a window but a two-way device to relieve the opacity of a wall? Nancy Jensen’s stories and essays allow readers to see into the rooms of her mind. Flung wide open, these pieces even serve as doors through which we can step inside, turn, and look out with the author at previously unviewed vistas. Whether looking inward or outward, Jensen’s prose always illumines.

Like some windows, Jensen’s book also serves as a mirror wherein our own features are reflected: how we struggle to define ourselves within our families, to inhabit our own bodies, to be known for who we are, to learn what we need about the illusions and insights, the generosity and selfishness of ourselves and others.

The words in Window are also those of a survivor and an explorer. Jensen has the honesty to confront what is difficult and cruel in the circumstances the world deals and in the viruses and hungers we harbor within. She has the courage to explore the unconventional whether the path leads to Asia, to Europe, or to the dark realm beyond the rational.

Readers will find Nancy Jensen’s essays and stories invigorating, surprising, sometimes frightening, occasionally amusing, always revealing.

-Sena Jeter Naslund, Editor, Fleur-de-Lis Press