From Publishers Weekly
The eight lyrical stories and novellas in this collection should buoy Naslund's reputation, already riding high for her 1994 novel Sherlock in Love, even higher. Plot matters less to Naslund than voice, sympathy, setting and tone: hospitable readers will be won over right off by "Madame Charpentier and Her Children," which describes a woman beginning anew after a friend's suicide: "It was autumn and we had already gone back to teaching, but the grip of the university was still loose and the feeling of summer cradled us." In "The Shape You're In," a 25-year-old artist flees Atlanta and her disturbed ex-lover to what she hopes will be a new life in Montana. Sarah discovers, however, that her Southern habits have followed her west: "Like many Southerners, she knows there is a kind of protection in politeness. It has a kind of beauty of its own, too." The title story draws its power from an unconsummated love affair whose memory hangs as powerfully as any unconsummated relationship over the narrator, a single mother. She concludes, "I will know one thing about the heartAthat it can break endlessly." Almost every entry here finds fluidity and confidence in its prose. In Naslund's tightly observed worlds, quiet betrayals resonate long after their occasions have faded. (Apr.) FYI: Naslund's next novel, Ahab's Wife, is due out in the fall.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Naslund's Sherlock in Love (LJ 9/15/93) was an elegant riff on the Holmesian theme, but though these stories are elegant, too, one wouldn't necessarily expect them as a follow-up. They're a bit quirkier, a bit more modern, but just as satisfying in their own way. Naslund's protagonists are often in the process of being redefined, sometimes by themselves, more often by outsiders. The little girl named Tink in "I Am Born," who has observed her doctor father helping a young black girl give birth, is aghast when the new mother wants to name her child Tink, too, andAbetrayal of betrayalsAher father not only agrees but expects her to be grateful. In "The Shape You're In," a young woman flees a certifiably insane boyfriend for a job teaching in the wilds of Montana, where she must contend with wild animals of both the four-footed and two-footed male variety. Some of these stories don't quite coalesce, but on the whole this is satisfying reading.ABarbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
