This is a beautiful collection of short stories. Several times I would read back over a line or passage to fully appreciate the beauty. Silver's writing is graceful and I was disappointed that several of the stories ended. I wanted to read more and know how things resolved for her characters. A gem. ( )

Marisa Silver is one hell of a writer. This collection of short stories explores the distance between people who are involved with one another and how one deals, or doesn't, with misfortune.

I am deeply admiring of Silver's ability to create fully-alive characters with level of complexity and nuance one rarely sees in fiction. These are messy people, living messy lives, full of longing, full of regret, often confused and buffeted by life. She is also able to illumine an epiphany without making it feel in the least contrived, something few writers are able to do well.

The multiple points of view, and the flashbacks, would be grating in lessor hands -- here they feel utterly natural. The stories are introspective, concerned with the characters' inner turmoil and thoughtful, and yet the pacing is insistent, and one is compelled to keep reading.

Silver has also written one of the most wonderful descriptions I've read of the ambiguous relationship one can have with a difficult mother: Here, Helen travels with her cancer-stricken mother, Dorothy, to German for an alternative treatment of dubious efficacy:

"What Helen had really felt after hearing Dorothy's description of the blood-heating regimen was not skepticism but pity. But she would never have said this aloud, not only because she didn't want to give Nathan the satisfaction but because she knew that it was horrible to have such feelings toward her mother, whom she loved--if that was the right word for the mixture of frustration and gratitude and hatred and tolerance and surprising, intractable, illogical attachment she felt for Dorothy, who was as deeply and inescapably rooted inside Helen as her own fractured heart."

Although I am always reminding my writing students to avoid the abstract in favor of the concrete, it works here, particularly with the last phrase.

There are wonderful moments like this throughout the collection. I can't imagine anyone not finding something worthwhile here. Enjoy. ( )

Short stories. ( )