From Library Journal
Budnitz's debut collection drops the reader onto familiar terrain and then twists the expected like a fun-house mirror. Whether set in a hospital waiting room, in a strange new city, or around a family dinner table, the 23 stories radiate with hidden truths and unanticipated revelations. In "Train," for example, we are made privy to the lives of several people on a crowded New York City subway. "We're sitting in a car full of stories," the 26-year-old-Budnitz writes, and one after another, we marvel as snippets of everyday life are explicated and pondered. "Herschel" takes us back, way back, to the "Old Country" and a time when an aged bread maker molded babies out of dough. "Yellville" places Russell, a teenager from rural Arkansas, into a middle-class family who have no idea how to deal with someone from the lower strata. Both humorous and politically pointed, these often surreal stories are explicitly feminist and pro-working class. A yearning for human connection and a reverence for the offbeat makes them both entertaining and touching. Highly recommended for all libraries.?Eleanor J. Bader, New Sch. for Social Research, New YorkCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, J.D. Biersdorfer
Many of the short stories in Judy Udnitz's first collection feature such familiar middle-class American environs ... that settling into them at first seems as cozy as relaxing in an old rocking chair--until this particular rocker begins to pitch sideways, spin wildly and blast off for parts unknown.... In a consistently impressive debut, Budnitz takes her Flying Leap and hits the ground running.

Seventeen
Amazingly original...These unsettling short stories leave you wanting more.

Nicholas Christopher
Remarkable, ambitious...both eclectic and assured...a wonderful book, and an impressive debut.

From Kirkus Reviews
The title is apt; this nimble debut collection of 23 stories takes a variety of chances, impressing by its audacity and originality. Budnitz, a Village Voice cartoonist whose fiction has appeared in literary quarterlies, seems a kind of homegrown surrealist, launching expeditions into strange terrain from such disarmingly mundane settings as back porches, hospital waiting rooms, and crowded city streets. ``Dog Days'' has to do with a man in a dog suit who takes up residence on the porch of a Middle American family, this after an unexplained disaster that has led to the gradual dissolution of society. In weird yet convincing fashion, the family--and particularly the young daughter--begin to treat the man, who offers a remarkable impersonation of a canine, as a dog. This leads to a ghastly ending when, pressed by hunger, the other members of the family suddenly realize that, in some parts of the world, people view dog as a delectable dish. ``Guilt'' offers a grimly funny take on family guilt, carrying filial neurosis to new levels of absurdity as a healthy young man is browbeaten by his two harridan aunts into donating his heart to his dying mother--having been assured by the doctors that he can live some time without one. In ``Directions,'' a variety of figures--a middle-aged couple going to the theater, a man who's been told that he has a fatal disease, a young woman apparently haunted by a collapsed affair, two tough- talking hustlers planning a score--get lost in the city and end up seeking guidance in a dusty shop where maps are sold and, apparently, the deity works behind the counter. Each of the characters gets the help he or she deserves. In ``Burned,'' a young couple are, quite literally, consumed by their passion. Throughout, Budnitz's wry, conversational tone is nicely leavened by precise lyrical passages. A good mix, overall, of the fantastic and mordantly funny. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Jill McCorkle
Judy Budnitz is a brilliant young writer whose perfect prose and wholly original vision of the world will delight and dazzle...What a talent!

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In her tales of people with ordinary hopes and fears who are forced to confront situations that are skewed, surreal, even fantastic, Judy Budnitz plays with the boundaries of time and reality. But each story is grounded in the possible, and each is enriched and empowered by a sense of humanity and hope rare in any writer, of any age.

FROM THE CRITICS

Boston Globe

Stunningly visual...[Budnitz] is terrifically talented. It will be interesting to see how far her own flying leaps take her.

Newsweek

I don't know what planet Budnitz comes from, but I'm happy to have her. Flying Leap is a tremendous debut--funny, dark, weird, adventurous, slanted and enchanted.

Time Out New York

Entertaining, engaging.

J.D. Biersdorfer

Budnitz reveals a bionic ear for clever dialogue and a picturesque writing style with a fearless tone that rarely wavers, no matter how quirky the conceit. -- The New York Times Book Review

Rachel Cusk

Budnitz's humorous and original story ideas and the bold strokes with which she delineates them are the indispensable allies of her lyric intelligence.... An intriguing and mature debut. -- The Village VoiceRead all 7 "From The Critics" >

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