A review by anishinaabekwereads
Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

 

I listened to Dantiel W. Moniz’s short story collection Milk Blood Heat in August (thank you @librofm for the ALC!) and I think I have to declare this my summer of excellent short story collections. Milk Blood Heat focuses primarily on Black girls and women in Florida and Moniz laces each story with examinations of the sharp yearnings of their girlhood, womanhood, and motherhood. There is no small amount of grief in this collection. Many of these stories are heart-wrenching, many left me feeling unsettled in the carefully crafted ambiguousness of their endings. As readers we are made to sit with characters’ immense pain, loneliness, and uncertainty.

There’s the story about the mother and daughter who are working through their guilt and anger over an affair. A woman recounts the death of her friend in childhood. Another recounts of the loss of a child due to miscarriage while her stepdaughter looks to her for attention. A pair of siblings journey with their father’s ashes. Pretty much every story is about loss, the pain and struggle amongst family, and the ways one walks through grief even if it makes no sense to anyone else. However it’s not all sadness. Many stories are tinged with knowing, of working through fears and anxieties. 

Listening to this on audio definitely shaped my experience. Unlike many short story collections I’ve tried to listen to on audio, this one, narrated by Machelle Williams, felt seamless. Though I don’t remember story titles, I found each story standing on its own, felt little difficulty in tying together larger themes throughout the collection, which, in my short story audio-listening experience, is no small feat.