Synopses & Reviews
In her eagerly anticipated collection, Gina Ochsner deftly examines the harrowing moments after a life or a love slips away and discovers that the human heart can be large enough for anything.
In "Halves of a Whole," twin sisters learn the trade of preparing bodies for burial in their Hungarian parents" funeral home but are ill-prepared to handle a death of their own. In the humorous "Last Words of the Mynah Bird," a desperately disgruntled husband buys a talking bird that he hopes will restore love to his marriage. A Russian couple mourns their infertility by bidding farewell to ghosts of the children they never had in "Articles of Faith." And in "The Fractious South," featured in the New Yorker, a young man finds solace and meaning in fishing.
Emotionally resonant and witty, these stories are rendered with depth and a strong understanding of human forgiveness, as well as an unerring belief in small, daily miracles.
Review
"Elegantly unsettling fiction....Ochsner's keen eye for the macabre is frequently evident here. Eleven stories that possess restraint and edge: a powerful combination." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Assured and humane....Here are stories full of unexpected grace, the strange sadness of beauty, and magical possibility tales rich with the quiet abundance of life." Chang Rae Lee
Review
"Ochsner is the real deal a writer who knows some things and has seen a lot, and fearlessly puts it all on the page. These [stories] will make you grateful for the joys of your own life, the skills of Gina Oschner, and the simple pleasure of reading." Chris Offutt
Review
"Gina Ochsner's new collection of stories will be among the very best this year, or any other year for that matter. She manages, with almost every story, to capture our sundry human moments and make raw and unforgettable music of them." Colum McCann
Review
"In these remarkable stories, which draw from folklore and myths, Ochsner's flawed, wholly sympathetic characters miraculously stumble into small moments, shaped with a delicious sense of the absurd, which connect them to a world that's magical, merciful, and infinite." Booklist (Starred Review)
Synopsis
Gina Ochsner's award-winning, highly acclaimed stories have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. In her eagerly anticipated new collection, Ochsner deftly examines the harrowing moments after a life or love slips away and discovers that the human heart can be large enough for anything.
A Russian couple come to accept their infertility by bidding farewell tot he ghosts of the children they never had. A disgruntled husband buys a talking bird that he hopes will restore love to his marriage. Twin sisters learn to prepare bodies for burial in their Hungarian parents' funeral home, but when faced with a death of their own, they must learn to prepare the soul. Glowing with warmth and sparkling with imagination, these stories are rendered with a deep understanding of human resilience as well as an unerring belief in small, daily miracles.
About the Author
Gina Ochsner's first collection, The Necessary Grace to Fall, won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and was published by the University of Georgia Press. It also won the Oregon Book Award for Short Fiction and the PNBA award for short stories and was an Austin Chronicle Top Ten Pick. Ochsner lives in western Oregon with her husband and four children.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
Articles of Faith / 1 Last Words of the Mynah Bird / 17 How One Carries Another / 27 Halves of a Whole / 47 A Darkness Held / 67 The Hurler / 90 From the Fourth Row / 98 A Blessing / 119 When the Dark Is Light Enough / 135 Signs and Markings / 158 The Fractious South / 181 Acknowledgments / 203