In these stories, a teacher obsesses over a student who comes to class withscratch marks on his face; a Catholic girl graduating high school finds awarped kind of redemption in her school’s contrived class rituals; and awoman looking to rent a house is sucked into a strangely inappropriatecorrespondence with one of the landlords. These are just a few of thepowerful plot lines in Suzanne Rivecca’s gorgeously wrought collection. Froma college student who adopts a false hippie persona to find love, to a youngmemoirist who bumps up against a sexually obsessed fan, the characters inthese fiercely original tales grapple with what it means to be honest withthemselves and the world.
These stories explode “with piercing insight — illuminating the dangerousdance between victims and saviors. [They] deliver us to the edge of grief,that precarious place where the moral compass spins, where codes of love andlaw and religion fail. Mercy here depends on a tiger’s sublime grace, ourcapacity to resist deeper harm, and the right of every broken being toremain silent” (Melanie Rae Thon).
