A review by mindfullibrarian
The Girl of the Lake: Stories by Bill Roorbach

4.0

This collection of ten stories is a wonderful literary homage to relationships, with each story being incredibly unique and in some way a statement on the human condition. Roorbach hits a vast array of topics, from a young child exploring Russian history with an elderly neighbor to a lustful online dating encounter between a farmer and a former member of the clergy, among many others. Regardless of the topic of each story, they are all hopeful and thought-provoking shorts - in my reading life, they were perfect as palate cleansers between longer novels.

My favorite story in the collection is the title story, "The Girl on the Lake" which takes readers to a lake cabin with the 17-year-old narrator as he spends the summer with his widowed grandmother. It instantly made me reminisce for the lake cabin of my own childhood and I fell in love with Chick, his grandmother and the entire lake property.

Thanks to Algonquin for the advance review copy of this title - all opinions are my own.