The American Wife: Stories (Michigan Literary Fiction Awards)

“Elaine Ford's collection roams the territory between the intellect and the heart. She writes of the human condition with precision, in language that is both grave and conversational. Her characters step out of the real world onto the page, where she develops them quietly, but with compassionate fullness. This writer grips the reader with her keen knowledge of the psyche of individuals-—their motives and secrets—and also with the surprising things that happen to them.” —Laura Kasischke, judge, Michigan Literary Fiction Awards Of Elaine Ford's novel, Missed Connections, the Washington Post wrote that it is a work “of small episodes, of precise sentences, of unusual clarity.” That same clarity proves an unsettling force in Ford's stories, where precision of prose often belies uncertainties hidden beneath. In the title piece, an American woman in England, embroiled in a relationship doomed to fail, discovers how little she understands about her own desires and impulses. In another story, another American wife, abandoned in Greece by her archaeologist husband, struggles to solve a crime no one else believes to have been committed. Throughout her stories Ford touches on the mysteries that make up our lives. Each story in itself is a masterpiece of such detail and power as to transform the way we see the world. "In the title piece, an American in England, embroiled in a relationship doomed to fail, discovers how little she understands about her own desires and impulses. In another story, an American woman, abandoned in Greece by her archaeologist husband, struggles to solve a crime no one else believes to have been committed. A strong evocation of place suffuses all these stories, which are set in suburban New Jersey, Boston, Annapolis, and New York City, as well as four European locales."--BOOK JACKET The Garage Artist -- Changeling -- Dyslexia -- The Cocoanut Grove -- Levitation -- Rita Lafferty's Lucky Summer -- Cousins -- The Scow -- The American Wife -- A Sense Of Morality -- Red Woman, Black Woman -- Hide And Seek -- Reaping Tares -- The Life Of The Mind -- Nerve-wrackin' Christmas -- Since You've Been Gone. Elaine Ford. Short Stories.