Storace, Patricia

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Storace, Patricia

Personal

Born in Mobile, AL. Education: Attended Barnard College and University of Cambridge.

Addresses

Home—New York, NY.

Career

Poet, journalist, and travel writer.

Awards, Honors

Notable Book citation, New York Times, 1996, for Dinner with Persephone; Whiting Award, 1996, for poetry; Best of the Best citation, Chicago Public Library, and Best Book citation, New York Public Library, both 2007, both for Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel.

Writings

Heredity, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1987.

Dinner with Persephone, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel, illustrated by Raul Colón, Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including New York Review of Books, Paris Review, and Condé Nast Traveler. Contributor to books, including The Condé Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys: Great Writers on Great Places, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 2007; and Arvon (poetry anthology).

Sidelights

Patricia Storace is a poet and travel writer. In 1996 she received a prestigious Whiting Award for her verse, some of which is collected in her book Heredity. More recently Storace has received attention for her first children's book, Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel. The book re-tells the fairy tale of Rapunzel, setting it on a lush Caribbean island and modernizing its influences, if not necessarily its plot.

Sugar Cane begins with a pregnant mother who craves sugar. Her husband, a humble fisherman, searches for and finds a field of cane. Only after he has stolen some does the fisherman discover that the field belongs to a "conjure-woman" named Madame Fate. The evil Madame Fate arrives on the child's first birthday and locks the unfortunate little girl in a tall tower with no stairs. Left to her own devices, the girl learns to sing with the help of ghosts who helpfully introduce her to the music of vastly different eras. In the meantime her hair grows

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ever longer as she contemplates the view from her tower, visited by her only friend, a green monkey. Finally her talent attracts the notice of a young man who helps her to escape. They marry, and she is reunited with her overjoyed parents.

Although Sugar Cane's story line is recognizable, Storace brings the tale new variety through the setting, the choice of musical preferences, and through her poetic sensibilities. To quote Gillian Engberg in Booklist, Storace "writes with a poet's command of rhythm, sound, and imagery." A Kirkus Reviews contributor likewise cited the work for its "lyrical" and "glimmering" prose, finding the story "a dreamlike tribute" to its original source. According to Mary Jean Smith in School Library Journal, Storace's "lovely book begs to be read out loud."

Storace is also the author of Dinner with Persephone, an account of a year the author spent traveling through Greece. The title refers to an ancient Greek goddess, but in Storace's book, "Persephone" is actually a favorite dessert at an ice cream shop. The author delights in her problems mastering the nuances of the Greek language, and she is particularly interested in how the modern Greeks react to their past history as a cradle of Western civilization. Phoebe-Lou Adams, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, described Dinner with Persephone as "unusual and delightful … a splendid book." In Booklist Donna Seaman concluded that the work reads like "a fountain on a sunny day: bright, melodic, and entrancing."

Storace lives in New York City, where she continues to write poetry for adults and essays for periodicals such as the New York Review of Books and Condé Nast Traveler. Her collection Heredity drew comparisons with such famous poets as Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and Walt Whitman from Sherrod Santos, who critiqued the work for the New York Times Book Review. Santos called Heredity "rich, erudite and unintimidated," concluding with praise for "the healthy audacity that led Ms. Storace to attempt such a grand and expansive first book."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Atlantic Monthly, November, 1996, Phoebe-Lou Adams, review of Dinner with Persephone, p. 121.

Booklist, October 15, 1996, Donna Seaman, review of Dinner with Persephone, p. 403; July 1, 2007, Gillian Engberg, review of Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel, p. 61.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, October, 2007, review of Sugar Cane, p. 113.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2007, review of Sugar Cane.

New York Times Book Review, November 8, 1987, Sherrod Santos, "Small Moments of Grace and Change."

Publishers Weekly, August 19, 1996, review of Dinner with Persephone, p. 44.

School Library Journal, July, 2007, Mary Jean Smith, review of Sugar Cane, p. 86.