The Moment of Tenderness
— April 21, 2020 release date
From the beloved author of A Wrinkle in Time comes a deeply personal, genre-bending short story collection that transcends generational divides and reminds readers that hope, above all, can transform suffering into the promise of joy.
This powerful collection of short stories traces an emotional arc inspired by Madeleine L’Engle’s early life and career, from her lonely childhood in New York to her life as a mother in small-town Connecticut. In a selection of eighteen stories discovered by one of L’Engle’s granddaughters, we see how L’Engle’s personal experiences and abiding faith informed the creation of her many cherished works.
Some of these stories have never been published; others were refashioned into scenes for her novels and memoirs. Almost all were written in the 1940s and ’50s, from Madeleine’s college years until just before the publication of A Wrinkle in Time.
From realism to science-fiction to fantasy, there is something for everyone in this timeless, magical collection.
With an introduction by granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis.
Charlotte is available for interviews and events. Please contact:
Staci Burt or Morgan Swift at Grand Central Publishing.
Reviews
“The Moment of Tenderness” reflects not only L’Engle’s growth as a writer but her search for her own personal philosophy, one that ultimately recognized opportunity and authenticity in nonconformity. When encountered in this particular moment, her comfort with duality — with writing for children and adults, joining realism and fantasy, science and theology — evokes nostalgia for a time when science and religion were not so regularly and blatantly weaponized for political ends. The label of “New Age” be damned, L’Engle shared with her readers her great capacity for wonder, and her refreshingly earnest desire to tunnel deep inside the human heart and expose its power to generate and regenerate hope and love — even in the face of eviscerating darkness.”
―The New York Times
“From the author of A Wrinkle in Time, 18 gemlike stories ranging from the small heartbreaks of childhood to the discovery of life on a new planet…A luminous collection that mines the mundane as cannily as the fantastic and extraterrestrial.”
―Kirkus (starred review)
“Unswerving throughout is L’Engle’s mastery of mood-setting language and her depiction of the complexity of human relationships. Voiklis’s illuminating introduction places many of the stories in the context of L’Engle’s life and points out those that were reworked and integrated into her later novels. The book will obviously attract L’Engle aficionados, but the thoughtful selection and organization recommends the volume to anyone curious about a writer’s evolution. ”
―Publishers Weekly
“L’Engle’s stories are softly tragic with sparkles of hope and a sincere faith, told in a simple and earnest voice […] These newly discovered stories, written in the 1940s and 50s, will spark the interest of the approximately one bazillion fans of L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.”
―Booklist
“[L’Engle’s] stories of human failures, successes, yearnings, and troubles all have a strong moral compass, even if the characters don’t. Reading them showed me the depth and texture that eventually found its way into “A Wrinkle in Time.” And “The Moment of Tenderness” is graced with the tenderness with which the author’s granddaughter read her work.”
―Christian Science Monitor
“While L’Engle didn’t intend these stories to unite in a single collection, they feel bound together by her unique and powerful tone, which seems to split her characters wide open to expose their raw humanity and allows one story to effortlessly flow into the next.”
―The Associated Press
“THE MOMENT OF TENDERNESS is a wonderful collection. The stories, even those that represent L’Engle’s early career, are finely crafted and have a modernist attention to the complexity and allusive nature of human feelings coupled with a postmodern detachment. Many are sorrowful and aching, even tragic. All are provocative and remarkable.”
―Bookreporter
Articles
Q&A with Charlotte Jones Voiklis: ““Now we have to keep the clocks wound, now we have to love each other, now we have to pay attention.”
“How a Pandemic and Nuclear Threats Shaped Madeleine L’Engle’s Writing and Worldview”
The Wrinkle in Time author was born during the 1918 flu pandemic and parented young kids through threats of nuclear war. A posthumous collection, The Moment of Tenderness shows the ways annihilation—and transcendence—informed her fiction.
―Abigail Santamaria, Vanity Fair