2013 Book 16: BODIES OF WATER
Book 16: Bodies of Water by Rosanne Cash, isbn 9780786860838, hardcover, 133 pages, Hyperion, $19.95
The Premise: (from the inside cover): These stories are a series of portraits of the inner lives of women seeking self-forgiveness, resolution and freedom in the face of the familiar betrayals of everyday existence. A mother spends a comically forlorn New Year's Eve alone with her young children. Alone in Paris, a traveler faces her loneliness as middle age approaches. A dinner party becomes a battleground of concealed disappointment. It is at the margins of reality and dreams, the boundaries between art and insanity, that Cash's characters come to learn that their redemption is to be found in facing the past and finally, in retrieving power from it.
My Rating: three stars out of five
My Thoughts: Not that I expected any less based on my familiarity with her music, but what Rosanne Cash really excels at creating are characters. Most of the main characters in these nine stories are strongly developed -- which is not to say they are all necessarily strong women, but even the emotionally weaker women are well-developed. Not every story feels like a story; a couple feel more like character's internal monologues more than actual plot-driven stories, and so not every story in this collection will work for people, like me, who prefer stories in which something actually happens. Still, even the (to me) plot-light stories in the collection worked as a way into mind-sets other than my own. Cash is also not afraid to play with form and format: one story is incredibly disjointed because it is mirroring the Multiple Personality Disorder of the main character; another is told in epistolary form. She gets kudos for the experimentation. Overall, the collection was more enjoyable than not, and a fine reflection of Rosanne Cash's talents as a songwriter and storyteller.
My thoughts on each individual story can be found here: http://365shortstories.livejournal.com/89897.html
The Premise: (from the inside cover): These stories are a series of portraits of the inner lives of women seeking self-forgiveness, resolution and freedom in the face of the familiar betrayals of everyday existence. A mother spends a comically forlorn New Year's Eve alone with her young children. Alone in Paris, a traveler faces her loneliness as middle age approaches. A dinner party becomes a battleground of concealed disappointment. It is at the margins of reality and dreams, the boundaries between art and insanity, that Cash's characters come to learn that their redemption is to be found in facing the past and finally, in retrieving power from it.
My Rating: three stars out of five
My Thoughts: Not that I expected any less based on my familiarity with her music, but what Rosanne Cash really excels at creating are characters. Most of the main characters in these nine stories are strongly developed -- which is not to say they are all necessarily strong women, but even the emotionally weaker women are well-developed. Not every story feels like a story; a couple feel more like character's internal monologues more than actual plot-driven stories, and so not every story in this collection will work for people, like me, who prefer stories in which something actually happens. Still, even the (to me) plot-light stories in the collection worked as a way into mind-sets other than my own. Cash is also not afraid to play with form and format: one story is incredibly disjointed because it is mirroring the Multiple Personality Disorder of the main character; another is told in epistolary form. She gets kudos for the experimentation. Overall, the collection was more enjoyable than not, and a fine reflection of Rosanne Cash's talents as a songwriter and storyteller.
My thoughts on each individual story can be found here: http://365shortstories.livejournal.com/89897.html