The vigil begins and closes the book, while the recounted tales flank its eerily allegorical centerpiece. Much of the novel's rhythm comes from the mountain cadences of speech which Chappell reproduces without resorting to the sometimes irritating use of dialect. By having Annie and Cora narrate the tales in their own apt words he preserves the oral storytelling tradition that is central to their culture. The stories themselves tell of passionate attachments, by no means limited to the customary kind, and the infinite varieties of human nature. Two women find their soulmates in other women, while a third forms a sympathetic attachment to the spirit of the wife that preceded her.
People share thoughts and visions without speaking.
All of this is so naturally and skillfully rendered by the author that nothing jars. Unlike the absurdity for its own sake that is numbingly abundant in current fiction, Chappell's occasional tamperings with conventional reality don't feel forced because they're worked into the design of his panoply. They also remain very much themselves, one of the primary lessons of the eight tales being the necessity of respect for human vagaries. The author's other vocation as a poet is evident in the novel's plentiful fresh, precise descriptions. The work's crescendo is reached in a passage recounting, fittingly, a dance where humans, music and the rising moon's light merge together in an ecstatic configuration.