Synopsis
Focusing on ordinary people faced with the eclipses of life--death, divorce, illness, loss--this collection of stories includes "Life on the Moon," "Intensive Care," and "Tongues of Fire"
Reviews
In Smith's accurately portrayed South ( Fair and Tender Ladies ; Cakewalk ), class consciousness, tradition and a strong sense of place (anybody not born in the South is a "foreigner") are of vital importance. Her characters, in blue-collar or the lowest of white-collar jobs, live mundane lives illuminated by flashes of yearning. With few exceptions, the women in these nine short stories have seen one or more marriages collapse; in two of the tales, the protagonists are still stunned by their husbands' departures. These are women trained to be gallant and to carry on; to take care of elderly parents and be polite at all costs. On the other hand, they are inflexible in their desire to preserve the status quo, and are surprised when life runs away from them. Only one character dares to make a break from orderly existence; this is the male protagonist of the touching "Intensive Care"--who leaves his wife and children and marries a waitress. One story, parodying a Silhouette romance, is unsuccessful; the others gain significance from Smith's insights and the graceful, effortless prose that places her characters firmly in their regional--yet universal--milieu.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Tiny explosion, little surprises, minor epiphanies pepper the lives of Smith's characters in her latest collection of stories. Supermarket owner Harold counts his blessings and his sins--a broken first marriage, an estranged family, and the disdain of the community--as his beloved second wife, Cherry Oxendine, the town bad girl, dies in "Intensive Care"; 39-year-old Cheryl comes to terms with desertion by her husband and an unruly mutt in "Bob, A Dog"; middle-aged and married Sharon rollicks with lover Raymond, the local oddball, in the title story, "Me and My Baby View the Eclipse." But the most endearing character is the precocious adolescent Karen, who, while her father suffers a nervous breakdown, her mother "rises above it all," and her older sister loses "her most precious possession," yearns for, even tries to force, "the call" in "Tongues of Fire." Revelatory writing from a master storyteller.
-Michelle Lodge, New York
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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