I was introduced to this anthology in a writing course. While compulsory reading is seldom as enjoyable as elective reading, I found myself returning to this collection of short stories long after the course ended. Stuart Dybek's "Pet Milk", a warm and rich introspection on the transition from childhood to adulthood, got me hooked and I soon read every story in this collection. Anyone who enjoys good writing but struggles to find time to read, or who appreciates finely crafted short fiction will enjoy these short but interesting stories. Highly recommended.

I didn't want this book to end; the stories were so enjoyable. Some were so intense I had to reread them immediately. I would love to take a writing course to try emulating them or using them as inspiration. One complaint: like many of these anthologies the editors don't give a hint of what to expect. Stories are ordered alphabetically by author's last name, but curiously each leads to the next. This volume is much better than ones that try to pick the best story (or stories) of the year and more enlightening than single author collections.

This is a wonderful selection of contemporary short fiction featuring a variety of authors and points of view and a great diversity of subject matter. Stories deal with such varied topics as homosexuality, the Holocaust, Native American mysticism and small time crooks. Women writers are well represented. This collection features some very different choices, including a ghost story from Joyce Carol Oates.
This collection will prove an invaluable resource for budding writers and literature majors alike. This would also be a great primer for someone unfamiliar with the most contemporary short fiction.

Reading this book was a breath of fresh air. I have not read such beautiful prose since finishing Gimpel the Fool by Isaac B. Singer. Within a few sentences of each story I felt myself being transported to the tropical local of each story. The protagonist/girl/young woman of each story melded into a single character trying to find her place in a crazy world. I was sad to see each story end, as I felt I wanted to know more. All young women should read this book, so they will know they are not alone in their journeys

I enjoyed Fox's memoire "Borrowed Finery" very much. This book, written before the memoire, covers much of the same territory, but the effort to turn what clearly are parts of Fox's own life into fiction doesn't work all that well. I had to laugh when I discovered Fox giving her own childhood to one of the characters.

All of the characters in "The God of Nightmares" are weird in one way or another, except the main character, Helen, who tells the story. She seems pretty ordinary until the last chapter when Fox tries to show us Helen isn't so nice after all. I didn't like this last chapter, which takes place more than 25 years after the main story. Fox tries too hard to tie things up and tell us what happened to each of her characters. I was especially irritated by the way she changed the husband -- but I won't say more about that as it comes as something of a surprise.

I picked this up on a whim from the local library, and was intrigued by the back cover. Given the short length, I was finished in a few day, but even so, I didn't feel that the stories lacked substance. There are a lot of stories in this volume, and as such the longest isn't more than 10 or 15 pages. By and large the stories are well thought out, little slices of life of a wide variety of people. One story in particular that grabbed me was "How We Remember You," especially in the way it was told, through the notes and charts of a group of employees at a homeless shelter. The first story in the book, about a young veterinarian performing her first house call euthanasia, is particularly touching. My least favorite of the bunch was "The Resolution of Nothing," mentioned in the editorial review above.

Despite some of the stories lacking any real punch or direction, most of them are very well-written, with characters that reach out and grab you, make you care about them for five or ten pages. I would recommend this to anyone interested in a short but very substantial read, or to anyone interested in realistic fiction.

Cheers!

I picked up this book at a thrift shop - my usual venue for book purchases - solely due to the title. I knew nothing of Mary Kingsley prior to reading this absorbing account of her life. Her childhood and early adult life would give no clue to the extraordinary adventures she would have in Africa, culminating in her death while serving as a nurse with the British Army in South Africa. Rudyard Kipling said of her that she was "the bravest person I know" - I hope I have the quote correct. I cannot check as I gave my copy of the book to a friend who bears a striking resemblance to Miss Kingsley.

Jude The Obscure goes against the normal strain in its treatment of topics ranging from marriage, ambition, dreams, and class-society. The book takes shocking twists and turns, and even though the subjects are often depressing, the sheer shock of what has just happened makes you want to read more. Hardy's main character is Jude, a poor, parentless boy whose ambitions far exceed the restrictions his class would put on him. Throughout his childhood he pushed himself in the studies of academia, he would always be seen with Latin books while delivering bread to the villagers. Eventually, as Jude grows he decides to move to Chirstminister-Jude's dream starting from his very early days of youth. Christminister is the center of all academic pursuit and home to the greatest colleges of learning. We follow Jude's adventures there, along with all of his attempts to being admitted into one of these institutions. This is not easy for a young man who has no money or family status behind him. One of Jude's great battles is between his burning desire to achieve higher learning, and his weakness towards women which draw him away from this goal. The elements which Jude's eventual children present, make an outlandish story even stranger by their actions. Certainly Hardy intended the children to present us with some additional lessons to consider while contemplating the book.

The book was difficult for me to read, as mentioned in other reviews, the depressing subject matter and gloominess is not inherently an inviting thing. However, by unfolding the story as Hardy did, following the dreams and failures of young Jude, I learned some lessons that I do not think I could have otherwise. I received a strong personal impression in the importance of not giving up on yourself. That even if your opportunities are not optimal, or you environment is not perfect, that you still have the ability to reach for your dreams. And at all costs you should not give up on your dreams, or believe that you are not capable of accomplishing them. I also thought a lot about the acts the society would have us perform, which are not securely right. Having read the book forced me to reflect about the daily choices I make, how many of those are really mine, and how many are artificial restraints institutions would have me believe I must make.

While I have read more entertaining books, I would have to recommend this one because of the unique perspective it presents. Hardy message allows us to think about important issues in a light not often seen through.

Jude the Obscure is a saddening book that deals with the oppression that society can force onto people. Jude Fawley's many attempts to rise above his social class and to become something better than he was born to are crushed time and again through society or the forces of nature. The writing itself is very readable; in the beginning of the book, I was very amused by how naive Jude was and enjoyed the way that Thomas Hardy used the language. The quality of writing never suffered through the book, but the plot becomes more and more depressing. In the final scene of the book, where Jude is finally dying after his life of oppression and tragedy, you feel incredibly sorry for all that Jude had to go through. Throughout his entire life he had been mocked by Christminster and all that it represented for Jude. Jude did all that he could to get there and become a scholar, but he was told to stay in his class and be content with what he had. Oppression through marriage of all of the main characters (Jude, Sue, Phillotson, and Arabella) was also explored through the entire book. Arabella is the mistake that Jude made that he cannot escape from. His one wrong choice early in his life ruins his chance for having a normal relationship with Sue, and in his final days he has to live with that choice. The underlying themes here are explored well by Hardy and give the reader a chance to see life from a different angle and hopefully appreciate what they have.

One thing I disliked about the book was the constant tragic events. I understand that Hardy was trying to explore certain themes by using such depressing events, but it was too much sometimes. When little Father Time and the children of Jude and Sue died, I was probably as crushed as Sue was. That is perhaps the saddest point of any book that I have read and it caught me by surprise. The tragedy of it was much more than I was expecting, and that is probably what Hardy was looking for. I didn't appreciate being bombarded by such emotional manipulators by Hardy.

The characterizations in the book were wonderful. Jude's aspirations that continued to be subverted by his weaknesses made him the perfect tragic hero. Sue was realistic, but she was never strong enough to earn my sympathy. She was just too weak, despite being the "liberatedEwoman. I came to dislike Arabella right from the start, and my dislike grew with each appearance she made. Phillotson was perhaps the most pitiable character in the novel, especially when he is persecuted for letting Sue go. The minor characters in the story add to these main characters and help to reveal who that are and why they do what they do.

Overall, Jude the Obscure is an excellent novel, but it does have its bad points. The thematic elements in the novel are explored in a thought-provoking way and the characters are portrayed in a realistic and poignant way that helps the reader to understand who they are and why they are being slammed by forces outside of their control. Those forces, though, are sometimes too strong and detract from what Hardy is trying to do with the novel. I would recommend this book, but be prepared to leave aside time to think about it afterwards. This book makes you sit down and think after you read it. If you don't do this afterwards, there will be so much that you miss.

As are Hardy's other books, Jude the Obscure is not an "easy read." Appreciating Hardy's work requires a little work and the ability to pay attention and to think a little along the way. But the effort pays off. Jude the Obscure is a great book about the human condition, at least as it exists for many people. Like other Hardy characters, Jude Fawley makes a mistake early in his life and continues to pay the price until the day he dies. He commits an act of folly that seals his doom, and nothing he can do can make it right. This would be merely sad or melodramatic were if not for the fact that Jude is a truly good man with truly good intentions. It is this that makes his story truly tragic. Not only is he trapped by the consequences of his early act of foolishness, but he is also trapped and eventually dragged down by the conventions of a society that is more concerned with status and class than with character and ability and more devoted to mindless tradition than to a considered morality. Most of what can be said of Jude also be said of his love, Sue Bridehead, although I found her to be a less believable and sympathetic character. I was surprised by the frankness with which Hardy deals with sexuality in 1895, and I can understand now the furor this book apparently caused in Britain and America upon publication. Hardy is a writer of great power and insight. He also knows how to build a great story. And he is a novelist of ideas. He has his faults, of course. At his worst, he is wordy, obscure, and pedantic. But at his best, he is one of the most emotionally moving of writers. At times his books flash briliantly with passion. At times, he is heartbreaking. Jude the Obscure is a novel that no lover of fine writing and a great story can afford to miss. The novel has haunted me for weeks since I read it, and it probably will for a long time.

Readers of Brown's BEFORE AND AFTER, a novel that packed a tremendous emotional wallop, may be disappointed in HALF A HEART. The author starts with an intriguing premise: Miriam, an idealistic young Jewish woman, gets caught up in the civil rights struggle during the 1960's. In the course of teaching at an African-American college in Mississippi, she has a passionate love affair with a charismatic fellow teacher, the consequences of which profoundly affect the course of her adult life. While the reader is made to care about how Miriam will resolve her conflicts, the author spends far too much time describing the characters' feelings and emotions instead of letting their words and actions speak for themselves. In addition, Miriam sometimes comes across as a kvetch! Get on with your life, woman, you want to say, and stop all this analyzing and brooding. The book would have been far more effective had it been one hundred pages shorter. (For a more tightly written, suspenseful examination of how the baggage of the 60's can affect lives in the 90's, read Sue Miller's WHILE I WAS GONE.)

This novel disappointed me deeply because it started out so good, with so much potential. A white woman gives birth to the child of a black man in 1960s Mississippi. She leaves the child to be raised by the father, but eighteen years later, still haunted by the daughter she lost, she goes looking for her. That premise has potential for melodrama, of course, but also for an interesting exploration of what it means to be a mother, as well as some complicated racial issues.

For the first hundred pages, I thought this novel would probe those issues in a sensitive and intelligent way. The two main characters Ð Miriam, the mother who left her daughter behind, and Ronnee, her bi-racial child Ð start out as intriguing characters. The pain of Miriam, who has a good life, but canÕt appreciate it because of the hole left by her absent child, is palpable. And Ronnee is a beautifully written character. We learn early on that she agrees to meet with her mother mainly because sheÕs hoping for some money to finance her way to college. And yet she doesnÕt come across as a greedy villain, but rather as an intelligent, ambitious and complex young woman.

But once Rosellen Brown goes into flashback to tell the story of MiriamÕs affair with RonneeÕs father, the novel goes astray. The biggest problem is that the author doesnÕt seem to know what to make of MiriamÕs lover, Eljay. She begins with a promising portrait of a charming and intelligent man, somewhat edgy and resentful because of all he has had to suffer to get where he is. But then, out of nowhere, he gets involved with a group of black separatists who seem to take over his personality. Suddenly heÕs a different, incomprehensible, man. Because we never get inside EljayÕs head, but only see him from MiriamÕs point of view, the change in him seems weird. I have the feeling Rosellen Brown was merely trying to make the point that black racism can be just as bad as white racism, but her political point gets in the way of the story. It would have been a lot more interesting to see what Afrocentrism meant to a man like Eljay. Dismissing his point of view seems like a betrayal of a potentially fascinating character.

And the novel goes downhill from there, with one clichŽ after another. Almost all the characters, black and white, are bigots, and the bigotry is so blatant and obvious, so crude, that it makes the novel seem anachronistic. God knows racism has not disappeared, but the author seems unaware that it usually takes subtler forms than it did in 1960.

Rosellen Brown is obviously a talented writer, and this novel had a lot of potential, but unfortunately the promise remained unfulfilled.

As the mother of several grown children, I've often wondered who my children would have been without my influence...who I would have been without them at the center of my life. This wonderful story explores those "What if" questions in an engrossing and authentic way. By creating a mother and daughter who are desperate to compensate for a lifetime of seperation, this book pays beautiful tribute to the amazing power of parenthood. As is always true of Ms. Brown's books, the writing is lush and lovely.

The pace is suspenseful and Brown's prose is as smooth, competent, and professional as could be. But ultimately the book is a huge disappointment. Only the daughter, Judith, comes alive for the reader as an individual. The father, Ben, and mother, Carolyn, never rise above type: she's a cool, rational professional; he's a hotheaded, arrogant artist. But they have little texture or personality beyond that. There is little indication what they ever saw in each other and no sense of their relationship outside of/before the central conflict of the book.

And the son, Jacob, is a cypher. I realize that one of the points of the book may be that we can never know how or why a kid goes bad/goes wrong, but shouldn't the novelist attempt to at least explore some possibilities? But in order to do this, we'd have to know more about this kid than his crime, and we are told very little. Other reviewers have fixated on the animal abuse and "molestation" of his sister (it's not clear he was even old enough at the time to qualify as a molester, but leave that aside for now) but even these are so sketchy as to not be particularly enlightening.

And the parents themselves--despite the pages and pages of introspection--seem unbelievably shallow and lacking in the most basic of questions. Consumed as they are with what they should do next, they never once ask themselves "how did this happen?" "is this my fault?" or even such niggling little questions as "why didn't I know my son had a girlfriend?" I find this hard to believe. . .

Finally, the book does not deliver the emotional goods. As a parent, the idea of having to face this kind of tragedy/dilemma should have had me quaking and crying, but instead I just felt annoyed at the characters and irritated at the author. One never really *feels* the love and guilt that are supposedly driving these characters, making feeling any empathy for them very difficult.

This is an exceptionally fast paced thriller with an unusual premise. The terror that the parents feel comes out at you through the pages. The absolute overwhelming horror that something has occured which will forever change the family life and nothing can be done to change what has occurred. The mother and father are well honed characters who let the reader know that sometimes really bad things happen to good people. If this book only reminds us how quickly your life can change, it is well worth the read.

Brown says, "I take very seriously the idea that novelists raise questions and don't necessarily answer them," and that "Novels are where we learn what it feels like to be someone else, where we learn to be patient with ways of looking at things that are not our own." (These quotes are from an interesting overview of the writer at ..., which is a great source for all sorts of literary stuff.) I think that some of the readers on this page need to keep this approach in mind before dismissing the book because they don't like the characters. I think Brown would say they're missing the point.

What was most notable about this book to me was that the situation is so ghastly, you can't imagine how you'd deal with it. I liked the way the main characters reacted so differently, and that the father did something that seems as terrible as the son, and yet, while you want to slap him and tell him to snap the hell out of it, you have to recognize the emotional truth of his reaction. Some readers seem to want a clear-cut resolution, but to do so would immeasurably flatten the book and diminish the power of the story. For instance, in writing off the son as an irredeemable creep while lauding the daughter's characterization, readers are ignoring her loyalty to her brother, which clearly doesn't spring out of a vacuum.

The characters are extremely flawed and complex, and they get into your brain. You may want to hug them or shake them or yell at them, but whatever your reaction, they seem incredibly alive. Brown's a poet, and some of her descriptions are beautiful if a fair amount of the dialogue, particularly early on, isn't esp. natural; small price to pay for some of the lines, which are beautiful, simple, and true. Good book, and a fast read as it's extremely compelling.

I mistakenly purchased this book at a friend's recommendation. However, I only LATER found out I had gotten the TITLE wrong!

But having bought the book, I proceeded to read it. Talk about a dissapointment! There is enough guilt and depression in life without another story that offers no "hope" or reconcilliation in broken relationships. You can watch soap operas and get the same result! If you want a challenging and uplifting book, try the one that I was originally SUPPOSE to read! "A Severe Mercy" by Sheldon Vanauken. Now THAT book makes you think about what is TRULY important in life! I won't be the same person after reading it!

I bought this book and eagerly awaited its arrival having loved Civil Wars and Before and After. This book has an anticipatory depressing premise: a spouse accidentally injures his spouse catastropically. The accident has already occured when the book opens and the family is leaving New York City for the tranquility of their small town, one year after the accident and one year after extensive rehab. This book never has an uplifting moment. Sure, the guilt Dan experiences and the anger of his wife over the accident is expected. But where is the reconciliation? The two kids seem like they are on the periphery throughout the book and despite her injuries, the mother never reaches out to her children. I read this book through hoping it would get better. The Wellseley wife lives this injury solely intellectually. The distance between the husband and wife is palpable yet never breached. I was very disappointed in this book, regretfully so, because I usually adore Ms. Brown's books. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this one.

This is a lovely, well written, and intimate story of a family in a very difficult situation. It is a thoughful reminder of what is important in living any life.

Lots of talk about what annoys agents. If you are smart enough to not call your prospective agent 5 times a day, and mentally healthy enough not to blow up at the slightest criticism, then you know the contents of this book. You are better off buying "2001 Guide to Literary Agents" and "2002-2003 Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents." If you buy those two books, you'll get as much distilled info about lit agents as you need WHILE AT THE SAME TIME getting the contact information you need.

I think that this book was one of the most useful books I have ever read. It is written so that you know exactly what is being relayed to you..I have just finished writting my first book and I was so lost. I did not know what direction to turn as far as getting it published. Everything was explained in such a manner that you did not have to second guess what to do next.. Thank you Debby Mayer for writting such a fine book...