These nine stories (many with recurring protagonist at different stages in her life) travel the landscape of women’s intimate relationships with family, friendship and lovers, embracing their struggles with desire and need to understand themselves. Told in Keener’s signature style—writing that is elegant, spare or as The Jewish Book Council notes: “precise and ornate” these stories are also funny, smart, heartbreaking and wise.
Idgie Says:
A very slim volume that is easy to carry around in your handbag and pull out to read a story or two. The looks I received while reading it, once the title was seen, also adds humor to the day. Many assumed it was a variation on 50 Shades of Gray. :)
I would describe it as a book filled with "intellectual emotion". The characters are all dealing with emotions - both conflicting and new - and it's this that the stories are based on, not so much the romance/lust that surrounds some of them.
They are "thinking stories".