Spanning nearly a decade of Kathy Fish’s writing, Together We Can Bury It draws heavily on the author’s Midwestern roots. Like the changing seasons, themes of childhood, siblinghood, and adult loss and betrayal are woven throughout these stories. In “Florida,” we share in Emmeline’s devastation when her mother makes her go to school unbathed after wetting the bed: “But how will you ever learn if you don’t suffer the consequences?” In stories like “Shoebox,” we witness daughters struggling against distant parents, their lives out of control; these girls “don’t want to grow big and strong, they want to be left alone.”
As we read about and remember milestone moments from our own lives, like first kisses, first heartbreak, and first sexual encounters, so too do we recognize that familiar “smile a woman wears when she’s on the verge of tears,” particularly in stories like “Wake Up,” “The Hollow,” “Breathless,” and “Foreign Film,” which reveal to us the lives of women in the midst of separation, divorce, widowhood, and desperation: “I call my husband sometimes in the middle of the night. ‘Are we going to be okay?’ I ask, whispering. I don't want to wake him up completely.” It is difficult not to think of these women as the little girl, all grown up now, from “Wild Yellow Dog, Giant Red Fox,” whose grandmother gives her a Royal typewriter and asks: “Please make your next story a happy one.” This is a collection that captures the feeling of embarking “on a long trip, something important and urgent, as if someone far away has died and here we are, speeding to the wake.”
"We readers are blessed to have these perfectly made stories by Kathy Fish, each one a distillation of novel-sized themes and predicaments to a heady, imperative, short short encounter, each story exact, humane, each story providing a language of music. And each the product of a writer who knows all the storms and terrors, the pathetic and somehow holy conditions of our existence. Masterworks!" --James Robison, author of The Illustrator
"A space man untethered in the universe thinking of home. A young couple biking in the rain to a parade that must be cancelled. A woman losing her speech and balance but still leaving, she thinks, for New York. With remarkable precision, Kathy Fish cham- pions the dreamers, believers, and lovers. If you are not one of those, you can trust Kathy Fish to show you the way back to your heart." --Jennifer Pieroni, editor of Quick Fiction
"Kathy Fish's Together We Can Bury It is a wonder--stories filled with sadness, humor, and longing--a slanted banged-up beauty of a world that feels like this one, only more." --Jeff Landon, author of Emily Avenue
"Full of grace and wit, Kathy Fish's Together We Can Bury It takes one to the familiar, yet bizarre: worlds of wonder, ache, and hope. Worlds not to forget. A refreshing voice, busting of compassion, guts, and wisdom. This collection shines with amazing de- light." --Kim Chinquee, author of Oh Baby
"There's a movie's worth of character and plot and insight in every blooming one of these short fic- tions. I finished this book feeling stuffed, dazed, and amazed by how much Kathy Fish gets done in such tight spaces. It's a thrill to be privy to what she thinks about, the wonder she carries inside." --Pia Z. Ehrhardt, author of Famous Fathers
