In Clea Young's arresting sophomore collection of stories, friendships fail, families stumble, and neighbours know each other's business.
A couple spontaneously invite their new neighbours to dinner and the night takes a menacing turn. A widow seeks solace and revenge on the mountain bike trails behind her home. And an overwhelmed single mother moves into a housing co-operative the same summer two teenage boys are on the run, wanted for murder. The women in these stories are stubborn, jealous, and stuck. They are misunderstood--and misunderstand--and lonely. They are also perceptive and empathetic.
In prose that sparks and spits, by turns poetic and plain, Young writes assuredly of loneliness and connection, love and loss, fear and fortitude, and, most evocatively, of the labyrinthine inner lives of women.