Stealing Time

Starred review from April 4, 1994
Time preys on the (mostly) female protagonists of these 14 carefully wrought and quietly breathtaking stories, many of which first appeared in the New Yorker . Grimm ( Left to Themselves ) catalogues with subtlety the daily acts, petty and precious, that women are consumed by but through which, paradoxically, they fulfill themselves. Gleeful college girls in ``Research'' gather lists of the ``guys'' with whom they might lose their virginity, but for the narrator the moment of loss is a lyrical glimpse of inevitability and impersonality, as if she were caught up in a musical phrase. The superbly understated ``We'' tells of three women, glowing in their young marriages and maternal tasks, rising up at night ``into sleep and dreams, as light as birds.'' After this domestic phase quickly passes, they look back at it wonderingly. The narrator of ``Interview with My Mother'' prods her bedridden parent for old memories and struggles to see how the trivia adds up. In ``The Life of the Body,'' jilted Kate feels robbed when her old lover, a husky red-haired poet, flagrantly expropriates her own grief in his verse. In the harrowing ``Bring Back the Dead,'' Karen waits out the ``stiff time'' for word of Jenny, her vanished 12-year-old daughter. And, poignantly, it is love stories that keep death at bay in ``True Stories''; they are ``like a gun . . . trained on the future.''

February 15, 1994
From the author of Left to Themselves ( LJ 1/93) comes an uneven collection of 14 short stories. Many of the stories are truly outstanding. "We" chronicles the lives of three young mothers who try to fill the void in their marriages and eventually come to terms with themselves. "Mommy and Doris" takes place in a McDonald's, where an astute older woman observes the actions of a young family. "Buying a Pumpkin" is the poignant tale of a father caring for his three children after his wife has left him. "Research" evokes a bygone era, which features a teenage girl determined to lose her virginity. Finally, "Bring Back the Dead" is the harrowing story of a mother whose daughter has been missing and is found dead. Unfortunately, not all of the stories are of the same high quality. Some are slim and relatively insubstantial. Overall, however, this is a pleasant collection. Recommended for public libraries.-- Stephanie Furtsch, New Rochelle P.L., N.Y.