The summer before the summer of love - Marly Swick

The characters in Marly Swick's stories inhabit the ordinary world of smalltownAmerica, of shopping malls, garage sale & school runs. But as they adapt to love, loss and the frustations of everyday life, the rich complexity of their lives unfolds. In the title story, a young girl goes to a Beatles concert with her mother and sister, and faces the emotional balancing act posed by the recentseparation of her parents; in "The Other Widow" a grieving mistress meets her deceased lover's wife; in "Crete", a woman who cheated death is now faced with the loss of her baby, and the fear that her little daughter's life was taken be-cause her own was spared. In a style as beautiful as it is unsentimental, MarlySwick charts the terrain of ordinary lives, to confront the emotional truths they contain.