Where the Money Went: Stories
In The Birthday Girl, one of nine tales of ruined or decaying relationships in Canty's third collection, a divorced father reaches out to a woman in a bar to help, if I can, for just one night, her loneliness. This yearning for companionship resonates throughout, though the choices and consequences are far from uniform. They Were Expendable sees a man turning to the comforts of television following the death of his wife, to whom he wants to remain faithful; an unexpected romance gives him new clarity. In No Place in the World for You, the volume's most memorable entry, a real estate agent and his harried wife cope with a bite-happy child while the agent's clients deal with their own marital drama. The Emperor of Ice Cream tracks two adult children of separated parents, the younger of whom has just been released from the hospital after a drunken car crash involving his older brother; conflicts reignite and place them in a new and dangerous situation. Canty exposes the cracks and seams in ordinary marriages, skillfully examining infidelity and the range of directions life can take once the relationship has ended.(July)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.