Ciment, Jill 1953-

PERSONAL:

Name is pronounced "sih-ment"; born March 19, 1953, in Canada; daughter of Mortimer and Gloria Ciment; married Arnold Mesches; children: none. Education: California Institute of Arts, B.F.A.; University of California, Irvine, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, University of Florida, 4008 Turlington Hall, P.O. Box 117310, Gainesville, FL 32611-7310. Agent—Gail Hochman, Hochman and Brandt Literary Agents, 1501 Broadway, New York, NY 10036. E-mail—jciment@english.ufl.edu.

CAREER:

Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1995; New York State Foundation for the Arts (two), including one in 1996; Discovery Prize, Chanticleer Films/Columbia Pictures, for short story "Astronomy"; Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize; NEA Japan Fellowship Prize; Guggenheim Fellowship.

WRITINGS:

Small Claims (short stories and novella), Weidenfeld & Nicolson (New York, NY), 1986.

The Law of Falling Bodies (novel), Poseidon Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Half a Life (autobiography), Crown (New York, NY), 1996.

Teeth of the Dog (novel), Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 1999.

The Tattoo Artist (novel), Pantheon (New York, NY), 2005.

Also contributor to periodicals, including Mississippi Review, CQ, and South Carolina Review.

ADAPTATIONS:

Short story "Astronomy" was adapted for television, American Playhouse, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

SIDELIGHTS:

When author Jill Ciment published her autobiography Half a Life in 1996, it was no surprise to fans of her quirky writings, which feature young girls growing up in dysfunctional families. Ciment's outrageous characters and story lines do not seem so very improbable when compared to her own life, from which she draws her intimate knowledge of poverty, an unconventional mother-daughter relationship, and survival techniques that often run counter to the law. In a review of Half a Life, a Publishers Weekly contributor described its author as a former "shoplifter, porno model, gang member, forger and seductress." Ciment's evolution from such beginnings to become a popular writer is revealed as an especially remarkable feat when readers of Half a Life learn that the author's delinquent behavior included poor attendance at school.

Prior to publishing her autobiography, Ciment published two books of fiction: 1986's Small Claims, a collection of short stories and a novella; and the 1993 novel The Law of Falling Bodies. Both works feature autobiographical elements that link them closely, the most important being the key figures of a young woman and her mother. Small Claims received critical notices that found flaws and promise in Ciment's stories. A Publishers Weekly contributor, for example, credited the author with interesting characters and ideas but concluded that "these stories … seem to exist in a void, relating to little more than themselves." More optimistically, Lisa Zeidner wrote in the New York Times Book Review that the book "suggests what Ms. Ciment can accomplish with wit and precision, when she extends the range of her subjects."

Such promise was fulfilled by Ciment's next work, her first full-length work of fiction. The Law of Falling Bodies was heralded by critics as evidence that the author had developed her skills considerably in the intervening years. The mother and daughter of this story are a nomadic pair who travel throughout the Southwest as "Mom" attempts to make a living selling an aphrodisiac perfume from her Airstream trailer. Responding to the novel in the New York Times, reviewer Michiko Kakutani pronounced that Ciment has "an uncommon gift for language" and that, despite first-novel failings, The Law of Falling Bodies is a "keenly observed and beautifully written novel." Likewise, Village Voice Literary Supplement reviewer Laurie Muchnick was charmed by the author's methods. "Ciment uncovers the bizarre undercurrent beneath the placid surface of everyday life," the reviewer remarked. "She takes the conventions of several genres—road novels, coming-of-age stories, romances—and blends them, with a twist of wit and sharp observation, into something fresh and original."

Ciment's novel Teeth of the Dog focuses on Thomas and Helene Strauss, who have gone to Vanduu to get away while Thomas battles cancer. Helene is an exstripper and thirty years younger than her husband, a retired college professor. The two soon find that the third-world country of Vanduu, with its hard-pressed land and people, is not exactly an idyllic place to get away from it all. In a review of the novel in Publishers Weekly, a contributor wrote: "Ciment's … multilayered novel is a taut, intelligent literary thriller in which character and fate, and a yawning chasm of cultural differences, unite to cause tragedy." Lee Reilly, writing in Booklist, noted that the author "has a special understanding of the limits of human communication."

In her 2005 novel The Tattoo Artist, Ciment tells the story of Sara Rabinowitz, who goes from living in New York's Lower East Side in the early 1900s to a South Sea Island just prior to World War II. On the island, Sara and her husband Philip Ehrenreich, who saved her from a life as a seamstress only to lose all his family money during the Great Depression, are searching for primitive art. When a lighting storm kills several of the local tribes people, the Ehrenreich's are found culpable by the tribe and are meted out the retribution of having their faces tattooed, leading to a transformation beyond the physical for both. A Kirkus Reviews contributor referred to The Tattoo Artist as "somewhat far-fetched and slender, but unique and weirdly imaginative." Donna Seaman, writing in Booklist, noted that the novel is a "smart and edgy tale laced with sharp insights into time and change." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the author's "latest is poignant and anthropologically intriguing."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Ciment, Jill, Half a Life, Crown (New York, NY), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 1998, Lee Reilly, review of Teeth of the Dog, p. 725; August, 2005, Donna Seaman, review of The Tattoo Artist, p. 1992.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2005, review of The Tattoo Artist, p. 651.

Library Journal, December, 1998, Nancy Pearl, review of Teeth of the Dog, p. 152; July 1, 2005, Caroline Hallsworth, review of The Tattoo Artist, p. 65.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, November 2, 1986, review of Small Claims, p. 2.

New York Times, August 16, 1993, Michiko Kakutani, review of The Law of Falling Bodies, p. C17.

New York Times Book Review, October 19, 1986, Lisa Zeidner, review of Small Claims, p. 30; May 23, 1993, Betty Comden, review of The Law of Falling Bodies, p. 29.

Publishers Weekly, July 18, 1986, Sybil Steinberg, review of Small Claims, p. 81; January 4, 1993, review of The Law of Falling Bodies, p. 58; May 13, 1996, review of Half a Life, p. 63; December 14, 1998, review of Teeth of the Dog, p. 55; June 13, 2005, review of The Tattoo Artist, p. 30.

Village Voice Literary Supplement, April, 1993, Laurie Muchnick, review of The Law of Falling Bodies, p. 6.

ONLINE

University of Florida Department of English Web site,http://web.english.ufl.edu/ (December 4, 2006), faculty profile of author.