Water: Nine Stories

by Alyce Miller

 “Her stories have a fablelike quality, a dreaminess that lulls even as Miller explores the most contemporary issues.  Her characters seem to live on after the last word—I found myself thinking of them days after I’d finished the book, turning over what might have happened in later years....These psychologically acute stories are truly satisfying—imaginative, open-ended, haunting.”— O, The Oprah Magazine "The latest collection from Miller skillfully explores the tension in Midwestern race and class relations....Miller's tales impart a real breadth of experience."— Publishers Weekly
“Alyce Miller has the eye and the skills for getting the short story right. . . . She writes vividly about people in various degrees of emotional extremis, and she avoids the temptation to invent resolutions for the dilemmas they’re in. She deftly captures individual psychologies.”—Norman Rush, from the introduction In this startling new collection by prize-winning author Alyce Miller, changing images of water as a force both destructive and healing are woven throughout. Whether giving voice to the nameless wife from a tale by Chekhov or illustrating the fears driving apart black and white communities in small-town Ohio, Miller makes vivid the heart of human interaction. These stories, told from different perspectives of age, race, and gender, acknowledge a common rhythm in each of us—unsettled desire. Alyce Miller has authored a collection of stories, The Nature of Longing (W.W. Norton & Company), winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and a novel, Stopping for Green Lights (Anchor Doubleday), as well as more than 120 stories, poems, and essays that have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies. Her other awards include the Lawrence Foundation Prize from Michigan Quarterly Review , The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Excellence in Fiction, and distinguished citations in The Best American Short Stories , The Best American Essays , The O. Henry Prize Stories , and The Pushcart Prize . She leads a double life as an attorney specializing in animal law and a professor in the graduate writing program at Indiana University Bloomington.

Genres: Short Stories

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Bob McGee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trite garbage by someone with no talent

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be a book with lots of stories that involved water, but they are actually about people. Some were very good, others were mediocre. In one, a woman who suffers a miscarriage ends up driving away from the pool she goes to everyday with two children that aren't hers. Some of the things the character did/said felt very real, but other parts made me wonder if the author had any idea of what it is like to lose a baby.

[Sunni Crum-Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

so far this is really cool. the stories are short and interesting. they make you think a little cause there is symbolism and alot of them you choose to understand the ending or not. i got this book on total accident at the library when i was parking in their lot.... but.. actually going to work.={

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a book of short stories, all with a theme of water. I did not appreciate the book, and feel that I am no better off for having read it. That's what happens when I get a book at Half Price Books that are really cheap, and I haven't heard of.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Freaking depressing short stories. I only made it halfway.