A couple of months ago now, I read Katherine Arnoldi's somewhat new book of short stories, All Things Are Labor. Ms. Arnoldi is the author of the 1998 kick-ass graphic novel, The Amazing True Story of A Teenage Single Mom, which is why I decided to read her new book. Some stories actually do overlap, but All Things Are Labor, which won the Juniper* prize for fiction, is a different sort of book.
The stories in this book really speak to me. They are about people who struggle on the fringes of mainstream life - single moms, the working class, the poor, the sick, people with different dreams, pacifists and artists. Some of the stories mention Mennonites and, as a Quaker, I am kind of a sucker for peace church stories, but these are truly good. The stories are highly literary in a way that occasionally, but not often, steps into the it-means-what-you-want-it-to-mean realm. That usually bugs me but not in this book. The stories are...exquisite.
Read it. Really. Do.
*If I ever have another daughter, I am naming her Juniper.
1 comment:
OK I am going to look for this. It sounds great!
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