How Far She Went: Stories

She's good, one of those sardonic southern writers who couldn't write a bad sentence if you held her feet to the fire or offered a bribe. She's got that fine ear that condenses our common language and turns it into near poetry. Every word pure protein, no filler. She fuses voice to people to place, like Grace Paley only Hood's people live in rural Georgia, tend to hunt, and Church sends its long shadow. So, imagine cross between Grace Paley and Flannery O'Connor. THrow in the terse existentialism of the blues. Richer language than Raymond Carver, or Tobias Wolfe but part of that short story renaissance that started in the Eighties. She's one of the best.