I had read her previously acclaimed novel "Bowlaway" and thought it was alright. Hearing that her strength was her short stories, I decided to give the new book a shot. This was an excellent collection. Lots of quirky characters and great writing. Tough to make all 12 stories shine but for the most part they worked. The stories about Sadie and Jack which were 5 of the stories and they could reappear in later book were the best.. Some writers are just better with short stories than novels and McCracken seems to be that type of author. I will definitely seek out her earlier collections. If you have not read her, then this book is a good start. ( )

Wonderful collection of short stories, some of which share characters. ( )

I really enjoy McCracken's short stories, and this collection was no exception. Some characters--particularly a couple named Sadie and Jack--reappear in several stories, linking them and making for a cohesive collection that develops familial relationships and friendships. Each character is unique yet recognizable, the situations they are drawn into both ordinary and epiphanal. A couple attends a family wedding. A mother takes her son to the "real" Legoland (in Denmark) and encounters an ex-husband. An elderly Jewish man, recently widowed, brings his adult son along on a trek to search for puffins on the Scottish coast. While one woman grieves for the son who died of an overdose, her childless friend searches for antique shops for a 1970s Baby Alive doll.

I have to say that I was less than thrilled with McCracken's last venture, a novel titled 'Bowlaway.' She is at her best, I think, with short stories, and I am glad to see her return to that genre. ( )

Bookended by a wedding, these stories feature people who after an unusual, sometimes perilous happenings, have moments of insight. Four stories featuring Jack and Sadie, the first Sadie travels to England to meet Jacks family. Very unusual people, this story was amusing but my thoughts were if I were Sadie I'd get out now. The next story featuring the couple has Jack meeting her mother, my thought then was Jack was going to have a handful of responsibility. The other two are updates, glimpses of their lives as they continue their relationship.

I also enjoyed Proof, featuring a father and son, a tender story. Walk through the human heart, a very unusual story that shows the strength of a mother's love, albeit in a strange way.

"She knew her maternal love would always be edged with meaness, so as to matter: sometimes you needed a blade to get results."

Another favorite is Robinson Crusoe at the water park, where two gay men take their son, a trip that turns out have a bit of a scare. It does have a very nice ending."One of the things he hadn't realized before having a child: how many ways there were to die of self-confidence.

There were a few I didn't care for but inn the whole, in enjoyed these. McCracken is a terrific writer.

ARC from Edelweiss. ( )

In each of these twelve stories, at least one line that cuts like a sliver of mirror; McCracken is a pithy observer of humanity.
The characters Jack and Sadie appear first in "The Irish Wedding" and later in other stories ("Two Sad Clowns," "The Get-Go," "A Splinter," "Nothing, Darling, Only Darling, Darling").

From "The Irish Wedding"
Outside the car the rain was friendlier than it had been on the car windows, over friendly, wet and insinuating, running its fingers through their hair and down the backs of their collars. (3)

From "Proof"
He'd burn the house down looking for a bright side. (28)

All shipwrecks begin with a ship. (30)

Gravity is hilarious, until it kills you. (43)

From "It's Not You"
...as though [the shower] were a science fiction pod that transported me to nowhere, but cleaner. (50)

From "Mistress Mickle All At Sea"
When you were a child you believed yourself special, deserving, and every piece of evidence to the contrary broke your heart. As an adult, the same was true. (100)

From "Birdsong From the Radio"
A radio station was another way grown-ups could talk to you without ever having to listen. (110)

Not everyone who stops being human turns animal, but Leonora did. (113)

From "Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark"
One of the things he hadn't realized before having a child: how many ways there were to die of self-confidence. (145)

From "A Walk-Through Human Heart"
Sunlight revealed the iridescence in their dark plumage like poison in a glass. (re: grackles, 162)

"Once your kid has done the first thing he'd never do there's nothing he won't do." (170)

From "Two Sad Clowns"
Jack, though, was a maker of beds, a love letter you mailed to yourself in the morning that arrived at the end of the day. (191)

From "The Souvenir Museum"
For a year and a half, before Leo could read but after he'd begun to talk, Johanna had known everything in his head, thoughts and terrors, facts and passions. (196)

Souvenir: a memory you could buy. A memory you could plan to keep instead of being left with the rubble of what happened. (202)

She felt as though she'd grown up in a cauldron of those feelings and had never gotten out. (206)

From "Nothing, Darling, Only Darling, Darling"
There was something in him that always deferred to other people in this way, he measured his own grief and found it smaller, something that could be attended to later: he had a cactus soul, he sometimes thought - it needed water, too, but it could wait. (230) ( )