Heart Attack Watch

February 15, 2016
In her first collection of stories, Foster (God Is an Astronaut) explores moments of catastrophe and the brief stillness created when people are forced into a pressing, decisive responses. In “Sand Castles” a writer, her poet husband, and their twin daughters enter a sand-castle competition at their vacation home in Michigan. The idyllic setting breaks into chaos when the narrator loses grasp of her toddler in the evening tide: “Jeff might know a word for this, a precise and spare phrase to describe the point where everything hangs precariously in the balance.” In “Blackout,” Denise is worrying about her hardworking but reticent teenage daughter when she witnesses a power outage from the roof of the hospital where she works, an event that portends the stunning sight of her troubled daughter poised on their home’s roof, “bare toes lined up along the overburdened gutter, leaning forward.” In “The Place of the Holy,” the standout of the collection, teenage Nina’s world is imperiled when a minister makes a house call and doesn’t leave. Nina, who believes that “knowledge begins with a person’s comprehension of their own unglamorous essence,” beautifully notes how “trouble and sin are infinite and inextricable” at the moment when her mother’s treacherous affections for the minister become apparent. Sharp, unsentimental descriptions of these difficult situations will keep readers on their toes throughout Foster’s astute collection.

March 1, 2016
Foster (God Is an Astronaut, 2014) explores people and relationships on the razor's edge in this collection of moving short stories. In each of the seven stories that make up this slim volume, the author places the reader directly into a workaday reality on the very cusp of changing forever. In the opening story, "The Theory of Clouds," a couple's secret is discovered when a group of outsiders arrives in a small, suspicious town. The title story zeroes in on a woman looking for direction while working the early shift at a local swimming pool. "The Place of the Holy" takes place at a home-turned-women's shelter, where a young girl struggles to get the attention she needs from her mother. In concise and moving stories, the author creates compelling and unique characters with rich histories in the space of just a few pages. But what makes this collection electric is the endings. Each story cuts away just as it becomes clear that these people's worlds have been changed, that the breaking point has been reached, and that whatever happens next could determine the course of their lives. Foster leaves each story at the exact moment when the reader wants more, a decision that could be woefully disappointing if not for her masterful use of tension and language. These short stories are brief windows opening into private moments of hope, pain, and struggle, and the decision to leave the reader guessing about what happens next underlines the universality of such quiet, impactful experiences. A heavy-hitting emotional exploration of the ways lives can change in single moments.

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May 1, 2016
Foster follows her debut novel, God Is an Astronaut (2014), with a nuanced story collection depicting varied characters struggling with the complications of their circumstances, emotions, and misperceptions. The standout The Theory of Clouds is about school-bus driver Julia and her partner, Danae, whose relationship is changed when a group of scientists arrives in their small town to study the environmental effects of the factory where Danae is employed, revealing the dark underbelly of prejudice. In the sublime title tale, a disillusioned college sophomore deals with her philosophical roommate and ex-astronaut neighbor while biding time as a lifeguard at a rec center. With The Art of Falling, an aging stunt double's brush with death impacts him more than he originally thought. In The Place of the Holy, a 13-year-old narrator takes on the chores of her absent father, helping her mother run their house, a refuge for abused women. When a local reverend arrives, however, her home life is thrown in flux. Foster's seven tales particularly shine when her characters realize the inevitability of their everyday truths.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)