Sharon Solwitz writes with a daring and perception that rivals D. H. Lawrence. When pursuing the inner thoughts and secrets of her characters, Solwitz doesn't glance away, keeping her characters under a spotlight that illuminates them in life's universal ironies and in their own inescapable quirks. In "Blood," a woman falls obsessively in love with a donor whose blood she collected, but whose name she never learned. And in "Editing," a secret that a lover insists his partner reveal about her previous marriage becomes the lover's own weapon ... or excuse. Reprinted from such luminary magazines as the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Other Voices, and the Pushcart Prize, Solwitz's stories are exceptional.
From Library Journal
Being an outsider looking in, a stranger in a strange land is never an easy situation. For many of the characters in three-time Nelson Algren winner Solwitz's first book of stories, being an outsider rises to an art form. Nowhere is this more starkly depicted than in "The Country of Herself." An Israeli Jew residing in Baghdad who suffers nearly constant derision from her Muslim neighbors is pushed toward paranoia when she is spit on one day when leaving the market. In "OBST VW," Demian and Rachel lean on each other for the love and attention that their parents cannot provide. Solwitz knows just the right mixture of dramatic tension and more soothing elements to keep readers from getting complacent. Her ear for dialog is acute, as is her grasp of malaise and pessimism. A good purchase for academic libraries or for public libraries with deep contemporary fiction and short story collections.?Lisa S. Nussbaum, Euclid PL., Ohio
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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