In her debut collection, Maureen F. McHugh examines the impacts of social and technological shifts on families. Using deceptively simple prose, she illuminates the relationship between parents and children and the expected and unexpected chasms that open between generations.

Harrison Evans Salisbury, Maureen F. McHugh

Peapod Press

Jelly Ink

United States, United States of America

First Edition, 2005

The 13 stories in McHugh's debut collection offer poignant and sometimes heartwrenching explorations of personal relationships and their transformative power. In "Presence," a woman helps her husband through an experimental therapy for his Alzheimer's disease and, by the story's end, is less his spouse than a nurturing mother to his developing personality. "In the Air" bridges three generations with its account of the different emotions a woman wrestles with as she anxiously tracks her wandering senile mother and her rebellious teenage daughter by means of biologically implanted homing devices. "Laika Comes Back Safe" represents so believably the feelings two school friends share about their lives in dysfunctional families that the revelation that one occasionally transforms into a werewolf seems entirely within the realm of possibility. Whether writing an alternate Civil War history in "The Lincoln Train" or a tale of extraterrestrial anthropology in "The Cost to Be Wise," McHugh (Nekropolis) relates her stories as slices of ordinary life whose simplicity masks an emotional intensity more often found in poetry

232 p. ; 24 cm
Ancestor money -- Interview : on any given day -- The Lincoln train -- In the air -- Oversite -- The cost to be wise -- Nekropolis -- Wicked -- Presence -- Eight-legged story -- The beast -- Laika comes back safe -- Frankenstein's daughter

Insightful, beautifully written debut collection.

2023-06-28