She Loves Me Not: New and Selected Stories
Hansen’s (A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion, 2011) rich collection of new and selected stories blends the well-traveled landscape of the past and modern, cerebral perspectives both restless and uncompromising. “Wilde in Omaha” follows an eager journalist trailing Oscar Wilde in the early 1880s, and the two spend time together during one of the young eccentric’s lecture stops. “Wickedness” moves as quickly as the sudden, devastating Nebraska storm it conjures. In “Playland,” an amusement park created from a 1918 agricultural exhibition is the setting for 17-year-old Bijou, who is torn between her older, disabled-corporal boyfriend and the advances of her egocentric cousin. “A Hazard of New Fortunes” follows a son as he cleans out his dead parents’ apartment; his own insecurities are compounded when he meets the downstairs neighbor. The eerie title tale follows Skeeter and the complications involved with the botched killing of his lover’s husband. The collection’s 19 stories cover a diverse range, from love to murder for hire, dementia, and exile, and are written with precision and depth. --Leah Strauss