The Quick

"The Quick" depicts a world where loss is a physical fact plain and real as a bag of groceries on the counter; a world without safe havens. In the title novella, Marie Russo sits down on the stairs outside her apartment with her bourbon, her bedspread, and the hard fact of her father's death for company. Her mind wanders back to the time she befriended a young widow and witnessed, for the first time, agonizing grief. In her other stories, Agnes Rossi's honesty grips the reader as well. A teacher leaves an abusive husband, takes a young lover, then must answer new questions. A girl kisses a man in a parking lot, feels the pull of desire, believes she's marching straight out of childhood. In "Scrawl, " a widower recognizes that his quick-fix marriage is a sham; but the child born from that marriage is a flesh-and-blood boy, his son. These women and men scramble through adversity with wisdom and wit, hearts open, eyes wide. Their voices, strong and clear, herald the arrival of a vital American writer.