The Wonder Garden

Starred review from March 16, 2015
Acampora’s debut creates a portrait of a fictional upscale Connecticut suburb, Old Cranbury, through a series of linked stories that are intelligent, unnerving, and very often strange. In “The Umbrella Bird,” a woman eases into her new life as a housewife in a stuffy neighborhood only for her husband to trade his lucrative job for a career as a spiritual healer. In “The Virginals,” a woman obsessed with the town’s early American history resorts to criminal measures to preserve it. The book’s best entry, “Afterglow,” centers on a wealthy businessman who pays off a doctor in order to gain a troublingly intimate glimpse of his wife’s anatomy. In each story, Acampora examines the tensions, longings, and mild lunacies underlying the “beady-eyed mommy culture” and sociopolitical “forgetfulness” marking Old Cranbury. At the same time, Acampora’s picture of the town—rendered in crisp prose and drawing on extensive architectural detail—is as irresistible as it is disturbing. At one point, a resident of Old Cranbury feels as though “the air of this beautiful place... has begun to sear his individual cilia.” Agent: Bill Clegg, the Clegg Agency.

April 1, 2015

The dark underside of picture-perfect suburban life is familiar territory in American fiction, but Acampora brings fresh insight to the theme in this debut collection, offering short stories that connect various residents in an upscale Connecticut town. Their problems are not new (infidelity, failed marriages, kids on drugs), but these suburbanites have enough quirks and stories intriguing enough to keep readers turning the pages. Acampora's characters seem compelled to leave the straight and narrow to walk a darker, more twisted path. One guy walks out on his corporate job to become a New Age shaman/healer, leaving his wife stunned. A historic preservationist is determined to prove that you can live in the past if you try hard enough. A distinguished neurosurgeon slides into alarming paranoia. Parents are clueless about what their children are up to. Characters either find cherished illusions shattered or cling blindly to their delusions. VERDICT The stories in Acampora's first collection are so vivid, tightly plotted, and expertly woven that they make you look forward to reading more by this accomplished author. [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/14.]--Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA

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