Customer Reviews

Missing Women and Others

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The women in this book are as good as real. I have loved them, helped them, pitied them, and have just been baffled by them. Wonderful people you will never know if you do not by the book.

Spence has written one outstanding story (the title story) and has churned out many acceptable, workmanlike efforts as well; but this, unfortunately, does not make an interesting collection. The funny, juvenile Seventeen story ("Isabelle and Violet",) in particular, sat uncomfortably beside the more depressed, serious pieces about adults. It seems to have been crammed into the collection because it was published somewhere. Most of these stories I forgot after I read them; some I even forgot as I was reading them. Judging from the final story, Spence has got real talent, but even the brightest talent needs a decade or two to develop, and I hope she isn't in a rush to publish anytime soon.

Missing Women certainly deserves to be better read and "read better" than the reviewer from Portland allows or is able.Consequently, I'll offer 5-stars to compensate.A close read of these stories...separately and collectively...is well worth the time. I'd compare the tone... confident, observant writing matched with unvarnished insight...to that of Mary Robison (who should be in print)and the point of view...rigorous honesty and perspective...to Lisa Zeidner in Layover. The content and the mood of the stories is memorable in the way that observing life from a "writerly" perspective is memorable...there's drama/melodrama/tragedy/comedy (sometimes simultaneously) in the ordinary (such as one finds in Christopher Tilghman & Tim Gautreaux) as well as in the extravagant. The collection was aptly titled (MW and Others) and sequenced to offer the reader the reward of discrete readings of the stories, as well as the reward of experiencing their overall impact. High marks to June Spence. I eagerly anticipate future work.