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Graywolf Press 1992
In these stories we meet marginalized Westerners, men and women whose lives lead them to a certain type of longing - for safety, love, and connectedness - that can be satisfied only through the most terrifying confrontations with self.
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Most of the stories in The Secret of Cartwheels were written during my first few years teaching at Purdue University, from 1987 through 1991. I was able to write about my family life growing up and two stories, "Labrador" and "The Secret of Cartwheels," are very much autobiography. The title story was included in Best American Short Stories 1990. I had written a version of this story when I was an undergraduate at St. Mary's College of Maryland in the mid-sixties. It was sketchy and incomplete, but I held to the idea that it was a worthy topic. Later, in 1987, when I felt I'd gained some skill as a craftsperson, I returned to it and finished it while still living in Bozeman, Montana. I read it aloud to a friend and cried throughout the reading. Another friend's child, Piotr Orloff, gave me the title one day as we walked along the Oregon coast. The secret: "Catch yourself before you kill yourself."
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From the Missoulian
"Henley's collection is lovely and troubling, lyrical and wise. The language is provocative, startling in its clarity. The Secret of Cartwheels is a fine book, and the reader who longs for intelligent, sparkling prose will find it a delight."
From Booklist
"Henley's gift is to give the situations that resonate throughout a person's life all their proper weight, convincing us utterly of the flesh and the feelings of her characters. Joyce does this, O'Hara does this, and so does Henley."
From The New York Times
"These are tough, smart stories about people who travel emotionally to the edge of the continent."
From the Idaho Statesman
"Henley's people are real and her stories make us ache for more."
From the Indianapolis Star
"Henley's stories celebrate simple pleasures as a balm against the uprootedness and deprivation that comes with freedom."
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