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"Gorgeously crafted stories." --Nancy Pearl (Book Lust) on Morning Edition, "Books for a Rainy Day" "My favorite thing about her is the wry, uncanny tenderness of her stories. She has the astonishing ability to put her finger on the sweet spot right between comedy and tragedy, that pinpoint that makes you catch your breath. You're not sure whether to laugh out loud or cry, and you end up doing both at once." --Dan Chaon "When I first read China Mountain Zhang many years ago, Maureen McHugh instantly became, as she has remained, one of my favorite writers. This collection is a welcome reminder of her power--they are resonant, wise, generous, sharp, transporting, and deeply, deeply moving. McHugh is enormously gifted; each of these stories is a gift." --Karen Joy Fowler "Wonderfully unpredictable stories, from the very funny to the very grim, by one of our best and bravest imaginative writers." --Ursula K. Le Guin "Enchanting, funny and fierce by turns --a wonderful collection!" --Mary Doria Russell * Story Prize finalist. * A Book Sense Notable Book. In her luminous, long-awaited debut collection, award-winning novelist Maureen F. McHugh wryly and delicately examines the impacts of social and technological shifts on families. Using beautiful, deceptively simple prose, she illuminates the relationship between parents and children and the expected and unexpected chasms that open between generations. -- A woman introduces her new lover to her late brother. -- A teenager is interviewed about her peer group's attitudes toward sex and baby boomers. -- A missing stepson sets a marriage on edge. -- Anthropologists visiting an isolated outpost mission are threatened by nomadic raiders. McHugh's characters--her Alzheimers-afflicted parents or her smart and rebellious teenagers--are always recognizable: stubborn, human, and heartbreakingly real. This new trade paperback edition has added material for book clubs and reading groups, including an interview with the author, book club questions and suggestions, and a reprint of Maureen's fabulous essay, "The Evil Stepmother." Maureen F. McHugh has spent most of her life in Ohio, but has lived in New York City and, for a year, in Shijiazhuang, China. She is the author of four novels. Her first novel, China Mountain Zhang, won the Tiptree Award, and Nekropolis, was a Book Sense 76 pick and New York Times Editor's Choice.… (more)
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Some notes on a few of the stories in this book:
Both of the first two stories -- "Ancestor Money" and "In the Air" -- are quirky and unique takes on the notion of ghosts. Both are warm, gentle stories filled with humanity and a sense of love for their characters, and both are a delight.
"Laika Comes Back Safe" is an utterly heartbreaking story of a girl growing up in love with a boy who's a werewolf. Yes, this sounds like it could be the worst treacle, pilfered from the best-seller list of a few years back, but it isn't. It's a hard-edged, totally grown-up story in which the tragic unfairness of being born to a life as a werewolf is paralleled by the equally tragic and hopeless fate of being born to poverty and squalor.
"Presence" chronicles the life and thoughts of a wife shepherding her husband through an experimental treatment for Alzheimer's -- a cure that arguably isn't really a cure at all. One might think that Alzheimer's is a subject that's been done to brain-death, but this story manages to bring it to horrific new life. It does this not so much through its science-fictional elements as through its relentless honesty and precise detail. It's a story that you'll find yourself wanting to escape from, but that honesty and realism will keep you trapped.
"Nekropolis" may be my favorite story in this collection, though it's tough to make a choice. With exquisite grace and delicacy, it draws a future world that's frightening and yet utterly familiar and believable. And in this world are placed characters who have the painfully genuine humanity that's typical of all of the characters in this book. I see that McHugh has expanded this novelette-length story into a full novel, but it's hard for me to imagine that the longer version could equal the jewel-like perfection of this story.
Highly (in case you haven't noticed) recommended.