From Publishers Weekly
Blackwell's debut collection vividly draws on the Southern storytelling tradition in its 12 gentle but unsentimental stories. In "My First Wedding," an unnamed narrator remembers her first peek at the rituals of Southern bridehood when her cousin Augusta married a Yankee. "Heartbeatland" is Anne Tyler territory: Anne and David, transplants to North Carolina who call themselves "the Schoolmaster" and "Princess Annabel," develop sarcastic nicknames for their neighbors, but when David dies, Anne finds herself simultaneously relying on and distrusting the "neigh-boors." Blackwell illustrates her stories with sharp and sometimes unsettling word snapshots: a past-its-prime piñata disgorges "misshapen" candy "mottled with mold"; a miserably pregnant woman plods "around the garden, holding her enormous stomach, her legs like an elephant's." Even "Pepper Hunt," a disturbing five-page story about a divorced man and his daughter meeting in a luncheonette, is a pinpoint novella with fully drawn characters. If Blackwell has one unifying theme, it's how ritual both distances people and enables them to live together. This shrewd collection should appeal to fans of contemporary Southern short story masters like Tim Gautreaux and John Biguenet.
(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Engaging characters face the tangles of life—marriage, adultery, malfeasance, aging, pregnancy—in this adroit debut collection. Twelve finely crafted stories, based in the South, are grounded in the ordinary yet clarify nuances with intimate angles. In the standout "Heartbeatland," Anne and her husband have recently moved to North Carolina and come up with sardonic nicknames for people in their new neighborhood. Yet, when an unexpected death occurs, Anne finds that she must rely on their neighbors to come to terms with the tragedy. "What We Do for Love" showcases a delicately involved triangle between Linda, a weaver; Tanner, Linda's best friend from childhood; and Jack, Tanner's husband. Backdropped against a love-crossed murder trial, the underlying relationships simmer with affecting poignancy. In "The Minaret," Miles and Bunny, a husband and wife on vacation in Greece, strike up a relationship with a younger couple that yields a provocative outcome. Although a few stories evince a distancing imbalance, narrative strengths lie in Blackwell's clever perceptions and sharp insight. Strauss, Leah
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