Using the small town of Oswego, New York as a backdrop, Leigh Allison Wilson's Wind depicts the lives of women having to deal with inter-sexual relationships in some way. A dark overtone could be felt inside the first short story, Masse. The main character, Janice, had a very ordered lifestyle. She went to work, came home and slept, then went out to the bars to make a few bucks playing pool. It was only when her schedule was changed a little, that Janice had difficulties later on in the story line. This story was full of so many symbolic features and references that it would be hard to be pulled any other way when trying to figure out why Janice was having such a hard time dealing with her schedule being knocked off balance. Symbols, such as the stoic 'Rock Fish' eating everything smaller than it to her inability to 'feel anything' during a sexual encounter with the bartender Philas, suggests that Janice had a traumatic experience with a former man in her life, either her father or a past boyfriend. Through out the rest of the book I could see a pattern developing where a little described male figure having a profound effect on the main female characters. A different approach was taken in the next 2 stories, Where She Was and Missing Persons. Both of these stories centred on a young girl named Susan. The first story was told in the first person narrative while Missing Persons was told in the third. Where She Was depicts an 8 year old Susan going through the transition of moving from her birthplace in Tennessee to Oswego, New York. She soon meets young african boy named Raymond Scofield and the two become close friends. This story illumes to a lot through the vantage point of young Susan's eyes. Her father seemed to rub off as an optimistic braggart with his many 'proclamations' of how things will get better and the later showing off in front of his bosses. You knew there where problems in the marriage between her biological parents over money and other 'un mentioned' things. By the end of the story, I got the feeling that she revered her father more than her mother, due to the fact that most of the story had her dad begin described while the mother was left a few lines here and there. Maybe this was due to the fact that her mother would later leave her father for Raymond's father, Mr. Scofield. Mr. Scofield could be seen as an easy reason why Susan would grow to hate men. Her dad, through his reactions to situations, can also be seen as another man in her life that failed her in some way. A good example from this story was when he took Susan and Raymond for a tour of the power plant he worked at. During the tour, he got into an altercation with his boss. Instead of standing up to him, Susan's father ended up backing down from the argument. His backing down was something unfathomable to Susan, who thought of her dad like most children her age did a strong willed person. Another example of how she felt her dad failed her was in the story that followed, Missing Persons. This story takes place when Susan is 11 years old, her mother is long gone, and her father is dating a new woman by the name of Aliene. From the start, Susan doesn't like Aliene much. Considering the brash tone and blunt phrases Aliene uses with the child, it's easy to understand why the two don't like each other. Aliene gets involved with Susan's father though, and this brings up many internal complications from the depths of Susan's consciousness. Susan basically sees Aliene as an annoying woman who is using her father, an aspect that seems to be illuming her father. This lack of 'seeing Aliene for what she really is' could be interpreted again as her father, the all knowing braggart, letting her down again. The next two stories are subtler when it comes to dealing with inter-sexual relationships. Obscene Callers and Women in the Kingdom display the aspects of loneliness from the adult female point of view. The main character in Obscene Callers, Dale Gillian, had a lot of problems when it came to men. Her abusive husband, Bucky, ran off with a younger woman and she ends up being possibly raped in the end by Grover littlefoot (possibly) and his fishing buddy Jerry during a fishing trip. The latter is sad due to the fact that Dale was attracted to Grover and she ended up being attacked by his friend Jerry in Grover's presence. This whole episode left me with the feeling that this has happened before to another woman during these fishing trips because of the lack of shock displayed by Grover during the attack. Women in the Kingdom takes this aspect of men hurting women in a different angle. The story centers on Mary Alice, a new comer to the town of Oswego. Alice, who is a lesbian, had recently lost a close lover, Arnette, to an unknown male character. The introduction of two Jehovah Witnesses into the story show just how lonely and depressed Mary was at this point in her life. At her new job, Mary meets and becomes interested in a young department clerk named Amy. Amy, however, doesn't know of Mary's interests outside of friendship. Feeling that Mary is lonely, Amy decides to move in with Mary for a while. Mary describes Amy's current boyfriend as a violent drunk, so Amy possibly moved in with Mary just to get away from her abusive boyfriend as well. The interesting aspect of this story is the fact that Mary is thinking of becoming intimate with Amy. Considering the fact that Arnette decided to leave Mary for another man, maybe this is Mary's way of getting even with men by 'stealing' Amy away from her present boyfriend. This leads me to the most interesting aspect of this book as a whole. Every story I read seemed to not have a definite ending, more or less felt like an episode in these characters lives. Each of these stories also dealt with the transition from relationship to relationship, be it romantic to parental, from a woman's point of view. The interesting aspect of this was that these woman seem to react in similar way to their male counterparts when it come to disappointment or the loss of trust in someone else.