Celeste Ascending

Celeste, at a less-than-tender age, finds herself engaged, living in a penthouse apartment, and jetting off on exotic trips. But after her initial rapture with Alex, Celeste discovers that he's not perfect, and she's not perfect. Alex makes her angry, he often seems to care more about his job than her, and he's prone to bouts of rage. And Celeste is drinking too much.

As Celeste begins to question her relationship and herself, she is haunted by painful memories of her past in well-mannered, blue-blood Connecticut. The people she loved most have all vanished—her beautiful French mother, who died young; her high school best friend, Sally, who suffered from severe depression; her first love, Nathan, who developed an insatiable case of wanderlust. Even in adulthood, Celeste's closest friends seem to abandon her, and she still, ten years later, cannot let go of her lingering passion for Nathan, who is the opposite of Alex in every way.

Celeste comes to realize that her life is full of lies, and that she must take responsibility for the choices she has made. In a bold refusal to compromise, she challenges her fiance, her family, and the very society in which she's steeped.

Author Biography:

Kaylie Jones is the author of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, which is loosely based on her experiences growing up in an expatriate artistic home as the daughter of famed novelist James Jones. The novel was made into a Merchant Ivory film starring Kris Kristofferson and Barbara Hershey. Jones currently teaches poetry and fiction in the New York City public schools, where she is a writer in residence, and fiction at Long Island University's Southampton campus, where shecofounded the MFA program. Jones lives with her husband and daughter in Manhattan.