Still Life with Plums: Short Stories
"Marie Manilla’sStill Life With Plumshouses in its pages a  repository of heartache and joy.  Its soul lies in life’s little  moments, somehow still yet perpetually fleeing.  Manilla’s words take  flight in the mind and dance “like paper birds in the wind.”   Inevitably, the words will root inside the reader, like the memory of a  fossil or a Polaroid picture, and once there, they will cease to be  still.  Just as the people in these stories, they will keep on humming."Glenn Taylor, author ofThe Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart  and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist"This mesmerizing collection of stories is full of my favorite  things: brilliantly vivid characters, rich cultural textures, bleak  humor and surprising story turns. Manilla weaves a kind of literary  magic that kept me reading late into the night."Zoë Ferraris, author ofFinding NoufandCity of Veils"Any reader who cares about mature, intelligent, graceful storytelling should be thinking very seriously about gettingStill Life with Plums into  their life--buy it, download it, check it out of the library--whatever  it takes to be able to read and savor and learn from Marie Manilla's  fine and resonant stories."Richard Currey, author ofFatal Light andLost Highway“This is an accomplished collection, displaying a variety of voices,  settings, conflicts, and surprising resolutions. The writing is sure,  and the stories demonstrate a writer who is confident in her vision.”Kevin Stewart, author ofThe Way Things Always Happen Here