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kfan's review
4.0
Favorites were:
"Evidence of Old Repairs" - About a marriage and a family falling apart, but it's really about guilt, and blame (see also Jessica's novel, The Report).
"Refuge" - a lawyer on a corporate retreat trying to figure our where she belongs, where she fits in.
"Ideas of Home, but Not the Thing Itself" - the title's a little on-point, but a deft story about the things we think we want.
"First Sale" - a story about beginning again after divorce, told from the child's point of view.
I don't know how to describe Jessica's style. There are no tricks. The language isn't showy or flowerly, and she avoids all the terrible absurdism and studied quirkiness that plagues short stories lately (Probably guilty, hi.). She's not didactic. There aren't those slow-fade endings where you realize Ah, so and so was symbolic. She just has a very light touch, she's never out in front of the stories, she just breathes life into them and they somehow take flight. Her characters are sad, but it's not the sadness she focuses on, it's the way they keep trying to find their way.
Can't wait to see what she does next.
"Evidence of Old Repairs" - About a marriage and a family falling apart, but it's really about guilt, and blame (see also Jessica's novel, The Report).
"Refuge" - a lawyer on a corporate retreat trying to figure our where she belongs, where she fits in.
"Ideas of Home, but Not the Thing Itself" - the title's a little on-point, but a deft story about the things we think we want.
"First Sale" - a story about beginning again after divorce, told from the child's point of view.
I don't know how to describe Jessica's style. There are no tricks. The language isn't showy or flowerly, and she avoids all the terrible absurdism and studied quirkiness that plagues short stories lately (Probably guilty, hi.). She's not didactic. There aren't those slow-fade endings where you realize Ah, so and so was symbolic. She just has a very light touch, she's never out in front of the stories, she just breathes life into them and they somehow take flight. Her characters are sad, but it's not the sadness she focuses on, it's the way they keep trying to find their way.
Can't wait to see what she does next.
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