Body Work: Stories

"No, I've never left my body," says Alice in the first tale in this rich collection of fifteen stories. She might well be speaking for all the women and girls that prize-winning author Hollis Seamon grounds so firmly in the real physical world. Her wry humor laces together tales that include a Smuckers jar full of sins, a metropolitan children's hospital full of gypsies, an antique chest full of small bones, a river full of pregnancies. Seamon captures the felt substance of women's lives, where all things imaginary, mystical, or uncanny are never completely separated from the crisp sharp chop of vegetables or the sweaty rim of a steering wheel, never far from actual blood and fat, sinew and bone.