Quickening

For the most part, the stories take place on an island locale,but range widely in subject, character, and design. A story like `Man Withthe Axe', which deals with creativity within the context of a testybrother-sister relationship, moves along in a fairly traditional way, while `Unfinished'is composed of a shattered narrative, a collage of grief and anger that reflects the distractionof its speaker. The stories told are familiar ones, of loss and generational conflictand obsession, though the angle taken is often idiosyncratic and the humour admittedlyquirky. The odd ghost may slip in; a dog may be given his intellectual due. The author hasallowed the actual and believable to flirt with the imagined, the fantastic. In places, sheconfesses, to have stretched the truth until its face resembles one you might encounterin a funhouse. But then, when you meet up with it, the truth isn't always a beautiful friend.