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Here is a run down on the stories included:
“The Rose in Twelve Petals”
“Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold”
“The Rapid Advance of Sorrow”
“Lily, With Clouds”
“Miss Emily Gray”
“In the Forest of Forgetting”
“Sleeping With Bears”
“Letters From Budapest”
“The Wings of Meister Wilhelm”
“Conrad”
“A Statement in the Case”
“Death Comes to Ervina”
“The Belt”
“Phalaenopsis”
“Pip and the Fairies”
“Lessons With Miss Gray”
I found out about this book through Jeffrey Ford’s blog. He is one of my favorite writers. And much like other books I have read through his suggestions through his site, I really enjoyed this one.
Goss has an incredible knack for putting together such wonderful short stories. I don’t know what it is, but she has it. Her writing style is open. When she needs thick prose and poetic metaphors, she handles them with care. When she needs to be basic and to the point, she is just that. And she never mixes the two, or other styles, unless they work. Every story grabbed me and took me along for the ride. I had no idea where the stories were going to lead me, but as I read more and more of them, I knew I would like the ending. There was not one clunker amongst the collection.
There are some recurring themes through out the book. Many of the women in her book are battling or have died of cancer. Whether a sister or mother or just knowing someone that has died of cancer. However, it not a nuisance. They are needed at the right time. They don’t overpower the story. And only one of those stories (the collection title story) does the main character actually have cancer. Yet she places the woman in a forest filled with mythical or fairy like creatures.
She also writes well from different perspectives, or from different cultures. The stories center around characters in Hungry, in the Boston area, or in a city called Ashton somewhere in the Carolinas, possibly during the 50’s or 60’s and where there are certain families that hold high esteem in the community. She tackles all of these very well.
For those looking for great fiction and don’t mind some fantastical issues, this is a great collection.
8/10
