So We Can Glow

January 27, 2020
Cross-Smith’s rich collection (after Whiskey & Ribbons) follows women exploring desire, desperation, and despair. The brief opener, “We, Moons,” an explosion of slam cadence (“We’re okay, our hearts, dusted with pink”), serves as a battle hymn of self-determination and sisterhood that thematically unites the subsequent narratives. “Teenage Dream Time Machine” unfolds as a texting conversation between two mothers worried about their young, wild daughters and remembering their own impetuous youth. In “Pink Bubblegum and Flowers,” a young woman crushes on one of the men rebuilding the deck on her parents’ house and navigates a tense scene of toxic masculinity. In “California, Keep Us,” a Kentucky couple, mourning the loss of their baby, retreats once a month for a weekend in California to assume different identities with one another and resolve not to “talk about death.” The delightfully idiosyncratic prose (“She felt guilty about lusting over Clint. It was lazy, like cold French fries”) distinguishes each of the narrator’s points of view within common themes of love, friendship, sex, and loyalty. These stories showcase the wide range of Cross-Smith’s talent. Agent: Kerry D’Agostino, Curtis Brown.

Delivering 42 beautifully crafted short stories, an ensemble of talented narrators expresses the desires and emotions of the mostly female characters as they navigate family, friendship, and romantic attachments. The charming Southern settings in many of these brief works come through in the narrators' delicious accents and soft tones. A unity of theme and intensity binds the stories. In "Winona Forever," Cassandra Morris conjures the intense friendship of two adolescent girls. In "Fast as You," Christine Lakin strikes the perfect notes of a nanny's erotic longing for her employer, a musician. In the refreshingly joyful "Get Fay and Bertie," Lakin and Morris depict a mother and daughter whose love shines in their email correspondence. M.J. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine