Delicate: Stories

by Mary Sojourner

Mary Sojourner writes about aging hippies, Vietnam vets, gamblers, hard drinkers, and hard workers- waitresses, bartenders, roofers - all in the modern American Southwest. Her heroines - all over 40 - are often single moms looking for another chance at romance (or even just sex), dealing with middle-aged friendships, desires, hardships and heartbreaks. In the opening story, ""Bear House,"" a middle-aged woman, discovering she's HIV positive, travels to northern Arizona to visit her best female friend, and in the enormity of the desert and the closeness of her friend's company, she learns to ask for help in getting older. The title story, ""Delicate,"" is a decidedly unsentimental story about a middle-aged woman with cancer and the lover watching her die. They are a couple that met in a topless bar: he's a Nam vet, she's a working woman raising a kid, they've both been around the block several times but they find a liberating connection together, even in her death. ""Estrellas Ranchos: Where the Real West Begins"" is the story of an 88-year-old mother who must sell a cherished acre of high desert near the Grand Canyon, and she and her daughter make a last pilgrimage to the place: "" 'I'll miss light,' my mom says. 'We've got so many kinds out here.' 'Stop talking about death,' I say. 'I'm not. I'm talking about light.'"" And ""Absolute Proof of the Cosmos of Life"" is a sweet, funny, and touching story about a married couple blowing their modest retirement in Nevada casinos. In the end, the lives portrayed in Sojourner's stories are anything but delicate. The characters in these stories are tough and familiar, well acquainted with loss - lost youth, lost love, lost money - but also with revelation, hope, strength, and beauty.

Genres: Short Stories

272 pages, ebook

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Olivia Conway · Rating 5 out of 5]

some of the most beautiful stories i’ve ever read. a strong sense of place and relationships so tender heartbreaking.

[Melanie Ullrich · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could never consider Mary Sojourner "delicate". Although this book wasn't a memoir, I felt like most of these stories could have been plucked from Sojourner's life. To me it read like a whole book of the "I have this 'friend' that has this or that problem" scenario. This book is obviously geared towards middle-aged woman, and being 25 now, couldn't necessarily relate. I did however feel a great sadness realizing how hard and confusing it has to be to lose your identity as a woman and learn to take on a new role when your kids are grown up and other such changes.

[rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked her stories, but her voice was too dominant throughout. I like hearing from the author, but not associating every main character with her.

[Lynette Sheppard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary Sojourner's prose illuminates the inner life of women, the fragility and strength of relationships, and the spare beauty of the desert Southwest.