Haines, Lise

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Haines, Lise

PERSONAL:

Daughter of an editor father and a newspaper columnist mother; children: one. Education: Graduate of Syracuse University; Bennington College, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Boston, MA.

CAREER:

Author and educator. Emerson College, Boston, MA, writer-in-residence; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, visiting Briggs-Copeland Lecturer, 2006-07. Has also taught at Stonecoast and UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Finalist for Paterson Fiction Prize and PEN Nelson Algren Fiction Award.

WRITINGS:

Thin Scars/Purple Leaves (poetry), Mudborn Press (Santa Barbara, CA), 1981.

In My Sister's Country (novel), BlueHen Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Small Acts of Sex and Electricity (novel), Unbridled Books (Denver, CO), 2006.

Contributor of short stories and essays to periodicals, including Ploughshares, Agni, Crosscurrents, Third Rail, and Post Road.

SIDELIGHTS:

Lise Haines is the author of the novels In My Sister's Country and Small Acts of Sex and Electricity. Haines, a writer-in-residence at Emerson College, has also published a number of short stories and essays, as well as Thin Scars/Purple Leaves, a book of poetry.

In My Sister's Country, a "darkly comic debut novel of sibling rivalry and family dysfunction," observed a critic in Publishers Weekly, centers on seventeen-year-old Molly, a high school senior who moves in with her older sister, Amanda, when their cancer-stricken mother enters a hospice. The domineering Amanda, a Chicago magazine executive, infuriates her young sister, who seeks revenge by attempting to seduce Amanda's boyfriend, Nathaniel. Molly's anger is also fueled by the memories of her unhappy childhood, when her father, a celebrated psychiatrist, forced his daughters to participate in powerful and manipulative mental games, then abruptly disappeared. With the family nearly destitute, Amanda convinced her mother to take in a boarder, the mysterious Mr. Graf, who held a series of weekly visits with them. Molly's search for clues to the stranger's identity "leads to the intense division between her and Amanda, and, in her eyes, to her mother's downward spiral," Kristine Huntley stated in Booklist. "There's a sinister, dreamlike quality in the way Haines handles this material," noted the Publishers Weekly critic.

Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, an "oddly compelling tale of loss," noted Booklist critic Whitney Scott, focuses on the complex relationship between longtime friends Mattie and Jane. Haines told an interviewer for Bookreporter.com that the idea for the novel came to her as a specific image. "I saw two young girls in my head, Jane and Mattie, meeting for the first time on a favorite beach of mine," Haines stated. She added: "Jane is the presence, the one who takes up most of the frame in a scene, and Mattie is the observer watching her intently. I was curious to understand Mattie's envy and how this would play out. I didn't know at the time that the story would be about their adult lives."

In Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, Mattie, a Chicago art appraiser, journeys to Southern California to help Jane cope with the death of her beloved grandmother. One night Jane impulsively abandons her husband, Mike, and two daughters, leaving them in the care of Mattie. Over the next few weeks, the women swap lives, as Jane seeks excitement and adventure and Mattie enters a passionate affair with Mike, whom she has always loved. Writing in January Magazine, Cherie Thiessen praised the author's narrative style, stating that Haines "has perfected the art of the sentence fragment. The result, after you get used to it, mirrors the thoughts and actions of a woman who is living moment-by-moment, without the incentive to get to the end of her thoughts, let alone to the consequences of her actions. Finally everything flies apart, as things always do when they're not nailed down and a strong wind arrives."

Asked how her experiences as a poet influenced her work as a novelist, Haines told AGNI Online contributor Sherry Ellis: "Forms are pretty blended now. Creative non-fiction overlaps with the novel, and the novel overlaps with poetry." Haines added: "It's become a great challenge to talk about form. A love of language motivates me. Psychology, imagery, character and story motivate me."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2002, Kristine Huntley, review of In My Sister's Country, p. 1211; August 1, 2006, Whitney Scott, review of Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, p. 41.

Boston Magazine, April 1, 2002, Greg Lalas, review of In My Sister's Country, p. 161.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2002, review of In My Sister's Country, p. 277.

Library Journal, November 1, 2006, Evelyn Beck, review of Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, p. 68.

Publishers Weekly, March 4, 2002, review of In My Sister's Country, p. 56; June 19, 2006, review of Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, p. 38.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), April 20, 2003, review of In My Sister's Country, p. 2.