My Escapee: Stories (Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction)
In Vallianatos      ’ nuanced collection, winner of the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, female protagonists struggle with untidy emotions and difficult realities: aging, self-doubt, and relationships past and present. “Sink Home” follows the married Mira as she meets Hugh, an ACLU lawyer who is a stark contrast to her dry, internist  husband. While Mira initially resists Hugh’s advances, it isn’t long before she begins to rationalize their muddled affair. In “Salvo,” Leah and Ian are preparing for their wedding after a whirlwind courtship shaped by their responses to the unsettling death of their artist friend. The title story portrays nursing home patient Genevieve as she begins receiving packages from an old lover containing fragments of their shared past. The mysterious deliveries drive Genevieve to confront her mortality as well as troubling memories of her former relationship. In “Examination,” the path of a young student in the midst of taking a test for admittance to a school for the gifted  takes a surprising turn. Vallianatos’ 10 tales skillfully explore the emotional dimensions of the gap between identity and self-awareness. --Leah Strauss