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anarag's review
5.0
The voices in this collection of finely told stories are varied and diverse, and yet they all share certain characteristics: clarity, self-discovery, a thirst for a better life. I heard one story read aloud and immediately bought two copies: one for myself and one to give to my sister. That’s the kind of storytelling in this book: so good that you want to share it. Lois Ann Abraham can crack the reader’s heart with a story like “Little Comfort” in which Martha suffers from a deep and abiding loneliness that her family fails to see or understand. The double meaning of the story title becomes painfully clear. Other tales open with first sentences that are so compelling that no reader could turn away: “Jill was the only girl who had ever run away from the circus...” “Rhoda Hale was born with blue feet.” Or the opening sentence of “David Fell and Karen Rose” that is a paragraph long and ends with “death”. I will not forget Smitty and how she found love, or the mother’s desperate attempt to rescue Sister Mary Jesus, or the sharp, funny view of the worst therapist ever. I savored these stories one at a time, wanting each to fully resonate for a good long while like a tenor bell whose tones continue to be felt in the chest even after the sound has faded from the ears.
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