Customer Reviews

Map of Dreams

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This is the first time I've reviewed something on Amazon, because usually everything I would write is already written in another review. This book is incredible! I came across M. Rickert's story Bread and Bombs in the anthology Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse(by far my favorite story in that anthology, by the way). Her writing is so beautiful, and the stories are haunting. I love to read short stories, but usually I can only find one or two that I really love in a collection. In this book, though, I really love most of the stories! I finished the book last night, and I'm still thinking about the lovely yet very sad final story "The Chambered Fruit," in which a mother tries to contact her dead daughter. Actually, the death of a child is a theme that recurs at least a few times in the book, and M. Rickert's portrayal of such a tragedy is very convincing, beautiful, and of course depressing. There is a sense of the magical in these stories, often in a dark sort of way. I love this book and recommend it to everyone! Now I'm off to read her more recent book Holiday.

M. Rickert's first collection, Map of Dreams, is beautiful, magical, real, incantatory, evocative, lush, poetic, full of narrative momentum and characters and situations that you will not easily forget. There is a generous amount of heart and sympathy in these stories, and a wealth of wisdom. Don't read this book at your own risk.