From Publishers Weekly
The author of three novels set in Appalachia, Willis populates her first collection of 11 stories and one essay with men, women and children fueled by secret passions, and by the act of storytelling itself. "What I love is when the storyteller says simply, 'Just listen to this,'" Willis writes in "My Father's Stories: An Essay," which opens her book. It's no wonder, then, that Willis goes on to let her shop-owning grandmothers and adolescent waitresses draw each other into the histories of their lives with stories. In "Adventures of the Vulture," a local oddball confesses her life secrets to an undertaker in a letter meant to elaborate her eventual funeral arrangements. Secrets are common in these characters' lives. Love affairs and murder fantasies are rarely spoken, but their presence infuses these smart stories with tensions beyond the limits of plot. The two shortest pieces, "Miracle of the Locust Root" and "The Trestle," accomplish the least, not because of their brevity, but because a moral seems forced abruptly on the reader. Elsewhere Willis follows her own advice and lets her stories speak for themselves.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Willis (Only Great Changes, 1985, etc.) offers a pleasant enough potpourri of short stories for lazy hot nights on the back porch rocker, reflecting what's important to their Appalachian characters: living and dying and the proper telling of both. The collection begins with a nonfiction piece that reads almost as a disclaimer: Shed city expectations when you read these- -they are meant to amble through country minutiae and may not pack a punch at the end. In fact, the warning is unnecessary--most of the stories that follow err on the side of being too sophisticated or airtight. The rural mentality resonates in other ways: The ambitions of the characters are as small as the towns they inhabit; blood is thicker than water; education is anomalous; and immortality is won by raising decent children, obeying Christ, and keeping your integrity. These folks don't have much control over the world, but they are determined to remain the sovereigns of their lives. In ``My Boy Elroy,'' an elderly shopkeeper who has lived honestly and eschewed debt fends off the ruffians at her door with sharp wits and a refusal to compromise herself. Similarly, in ``Adventures of the Vulture,'' a dotty old woman known as ``the funeral lady'' plans her own service in a letter to the funeral parlor director so that she will control her destiny. While content is consistent, the forms of the stories vary widely. There is a country yarn, a series of monologues with alternating viewpoints, a letter, and traditional stories focusing on dialogue, description, and meaningfulness (sometimes too strenuously). Of the latter, ``Family Knots,'' where life's passages are measured in the stitches of quilts, is notable. The earth won't move for readers of this modest collection, but the clouds above it will drift slowly and congenially by for a couple of hours. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
