“This new collection of 28 short stories that span [Frame’s] career (many of which have never been published) showcases her extraordinary gifts as an imaginative storyteller with a singular viewpoint. . .These stories—with themes of despair, disappointment, and wonder, underscored by Frame’s melancholy and vivid turns of phrase—are beautifully rendered.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A powerful collection.” —Kirkus
“Frame’s ability to distill an experience and sometimes an entire life into a few pages was remarkable. Her characters yearn, and ache, and are overtaken by wonder. She was an emotional cartographer of the highest order, one who deeply understood the inner workings of the human heart.”—The Rumpus
“The title story stands as the epitome of her traits and merits in the short form. It is a tight, first–person, tongue–in–cheek remembrance of the narrator’s father’s debt to the English king for money borrowed to buy new furniture—and of how the king’s representative just might stop in at any time to make certain the furniture is being well taken care of! This and all the other stories in the collection demonstrate writerly genius in every sentence, are told with charming and often wicked wit, boast visual images conjured with nimble wordplay (“The sky sagged in the middle, there didn’t seem to be enough head–room”), and display a warm intimacy between the author and her prose as she writes close to the psychological and autobiographical bone.”—Booklist
“Frame’s stories exist in liminal spaces, which doesn’t always make for comforting reading. But as this collection proves, that only makes her unique voice more indispensable.” —Publishers Weekly
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