Book of short stories offers long memories
RICHMOND – Love, infidelity, endurance, desperation, hope, aging, exuberance, relationships at all levels…
The vivid spectrum of human experience is arrayed in gorgeous detail in Rose Marie Kinder’s collection of shorts, “A Common Person and Other Stories.”
Kinder from everyday life forges sincere, powerful revelations about what goes into being human, sometimes in glory and sometimes in shame, and told always with a genius for emotional honesty that eschews the maudlin in favor of the real.
I enjoyed every story, the easy way in which the reader is introduced to likable and detestable characters. The title story opens with a thought peeled like a scab off the skin of that raw political hate, which is all too evident in society today, only to be rethought and regretted, and concludes with a simple but powerful display of courage.
Every story deserves praise, with “Tradition” careening in the space of a heartbeat from the mundane to the shocking, doing so with surprising ease and…