The View from Below

These stories are subtle, articulate and intelligent -- probably too much so for the likes of your average Kirkus reviewer. With the exception, possibly, of the title story, which is a bit tiring, the stories here all manage that subtlest of tricks in short fiction: they create drama and narrative suspense without much in the way of conventional plot, instead relying on character, vivid physical detail, image and prose rhythm to move things along. I'm really impressed, in particular, with the last story in the collection, and the second one "Away From Trees," both of which are convincingly and appealingly sensual, and surprising in the ways that they resolve their conflicts. In all of these stories, the best of them anyway, there's a wonderful tone of sadness given honestly and without so much of our generation's very tiring pretense of irony and hip jadedness. This is some really good and refreshing fiction!