The Awful Grace of God: And other stories

A collection of vignettes and short stories, this book searches for the humanity visible in everyday relationships and events. We are given glimpses into characters lives through events as common as a bowl of cereal left out or a cigarette between father and son. Each story strives to capture a particular emotion or identity from our times, then to hold it up for a moment for the reader before letting it slip once again away. In the tradition of Hemingway's In Our Time, the book alternates vignettes and stories, using the moods and emotions of each to speak to the others. The vignettes are quick kisses in the dark of characters' lives, silent or pounding revelations into the heart of the very world they are trying futilely to understand---a young man is forced to confront his own indifference to a sick man's illness; the sudden innocent scrape of a leaf surprises a mind into memory. In each piece, memory acts as both an anchor and a push to move beyond losses of the past.