Title: Vanishing and Other Stories
Author: Deborah Willis
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: August 17, 2010
Paperback: 320 pages
ISBN: 978-0062007520
Genre: Fiction
A French teacher who collects fiancés; a fortune-teller who fails to predict the heartbreak of her own daughter; an aging cowboy seduced by a city girl . . . these are some of the unforgettable people who live in these pages.
In Vanishing and Other Stories, secrets are both kept and unearthed, and lives are shaped by missing lovers, parents, and children. With wisdom and dexterity, moments of dark humor, and a remark- able economy of words, Deborah Willis captures an incredible array of characters that linger in the imagination and prove that nothing is ever truly forgotten.
My Review:
Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis is a beautiful and emotional composition of short stories linked together with a common theme of loss. While not one to usually enjoy short stories, I found myself unable to put the book down as I greedily went from one story to the next in eager anticipation. Willis’ use of prose is both lyrical and deeply emotional, moving the reader in each of her fourteen stories, with the commonality of something missing; this continuity of the theme keeps the stories flowing smoothly. Willis’ descriptive use of imagery, circumstances and an eclectic ensemble of characters make Willis’ stories intense, emotional, interesting and deeply engrossing. Vanishing and Other Stories is a beautiful work of literary fiction and I would not hesitate to recommend Vanishing and Other Stories to any reader.
Deborah Willis’s work has appeared in the Bridport Prize Anthology, Event, and Grain, and she was a winner of PRISM International’s annual fiction prize. Short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, Vanishing and Other Stories is her first book of fiction.
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I received a complimentary copy of Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis from TLC Book Tours to be a part of this tour and offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.
Lovely review. The book sounds, oh I actually do not know what to say, it’s one of those I would have to try to say
Thank you. The stories are beautiful written, yet if you are looking for a feel good book, this may not be the choice as each story deals with some sort of loss and the issue of how to get on or to even move forward. If you are a fan of literature, I would highly recommend this book.
I appreciate short stories more these days than I used to, but I’m not sure I want to read about loss right now.
I found the stories to be deeply moving in various ways. The loss is not necessarily a death, but rather something gone and how the person moves or or does not as the case may be. The prose is beautiful.
Yay! So glad you liked it. I love deeply emotional books, so I’ll definitely be picking this one up.
Thanks for being on this tour!