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Little gems of perfection, each of the ten short stories from this collection published in 1990 will sneak up on you, emotionally, letting the reader deep into a life (and its gossamy spiderweb of related lives) for one brief and startling instant. Each a length of ten or twenty pages. And that’s all. Everything standing still as we shadow ordinary people, and the tangle inside their heads, — an undercurrent of emotions that may include anger, fear, despair or tenderness — nothing more than sharply wrought images, frozen in time, of people, (most of them experiencing an emotional crisis) interspersed with ordinary, every day, feelings and happenings. And in that nothing more, is everything.
As our protagonists gradually awaken to the unfamiliar feelings gathering presence in their hearts, they puzzle through them, recognizing, for the most part, the complete and utter entanglement of body and life — “each of us moving deeper into whatever world we found, still attached”.
“Right now, it’s just sort of there, like a buzzy place, inside her head. “
“Anger and tenderness. That she can feel so many conflicting things, that she could know so little about anything she feels and still manage to appear a competent adult. Sometimes it scares her. Knowing there’s no end to feeling like this, ever. “
“He gives her a wry smile, as if he, too, has just caught on to the fact that the people he trusts are no more certain than he is.“
Impossible to pick a favorite, nonetheless this reader found herself overcome when reading the final pages of the titular “The people you trust your life to”, as four middle-aged friends gather to support each other, unconditionally, through some truly heart-rending revelations. And not to forget “Tip of my tongue”, with its clear and understated brilliance, as it cracks open family secrets, and the pained impossibility of silence, maintained above all else, forever and a day.
“And how afraid I am of even the small offering, if that is really what it is. Acknowledgment, maybe, even an apology. The most my mother will allow herself”.
A masterpiece of quiet, seething exposure, this collection will delight any reader who longs to feel, with a character, with all these characters, raw humanness in all its forms — whatever the cost.
