Wednesday, December 27, 2006

The Dandelion Garden, by Budge Wilson

In this collection of short stories, Wilson tells of the impact of a divisive family that blows into town, a spoiled older brother, a canoe trip, a boy who dreamed fo being a dandelion gardener, a Mother's pregnancy, and several others stories. The themes are diverse and seemingly unrelated. The jacket claims that each story deals with transformative moments, but that isn't really true, except in the loose sense that every story is about a change of some sort.

Short story collections are usually a bit uneven. This is no exception. The first three stories (including the title story) work very nicely and are quite outstanding. The last couple ones (including a fairly feeble science fiction one at the end) do not work nearly as well. When Wilson is good, she's very very good.

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