num_pages: 128
description: Solveig von Schoultz's ideal short story is "like a waterdrop that reflects the whole of human existence." Her insights are penetrating, recapturing things we have forgotten or portraying feelings we would rather not acknowledge. What makes her stories exceptional, however, is the compassion that permeates them. The stories move from youth to old age, beginning with young Ansa, forced to acknowledge that grown-ups can't hear the needs and voices of inanimate objects and don't know that "the slightest little dot on an i can beg to be fatter as you write, and your whole body feels wrong until you have obeyed." Then there is Eva, an adolescent who goes to see the father who deserted her and discovers a stranger. "The girl," is a little older, struggling with the baby she didn't expect, while the narrator of "Report" is a middle-aged wife and mother whose interactions with a homeless man cause her to realize that "even if I took all I had and shared it with Pulli, it would count for nothing... Not so long as I close my eyes at the door, so that I don't have to look at him." The last three stories describe women with adult children and difficult marriages, whose lives are filled with reconsideration and reflection and whose futures offer both hope and frustration. Even the painful stories carry a deep, calm beauty; there is a sense that these moments are miracles, if only because they are a part of life.
language: English
title: Heartwork: Selected Short Stories
titlecomplete: Heartwork: Selected Short Stories
genres: Short Stories
ratings_count: 6
publisher: Dufour Editions