Status Updates From In the Country

A Contract Overseas might be my favorite story here, and I am guessing the most autobiographical. I felt as if I was walking alongside the narrator. She drew a brilliant story of a life, and the lives surrounding hers, in Saudi and in the Philippines, and a chaotic and difficult moment. Moving and edifying and beautifully written,

Esmerelda - The 9/11 story. It has lovely elements, but it doesn't seem to know what it wants to say. 9/11 is shrunken down into a vehicle for self-flagellation and self-abnegation. It all feels too cynical.

The Old Girl - Like the main character in Esmarelda, The Old Girl (that is what she calls herself) seems to have no form. She exists only in relation to her husband and children. I began to find this tedious,

The Virgin of Monte Ramon is the least engrossing of the stories so far for me. So many avenues for cruelty and for lies, to oneself and others. Folklore feels better than truth. And there is so much guilt to go around.

Shadow Families is the second story about Filipinas living with engineer husbands in Bahrain, educated women, mostly raising children who are nothing like them and building community. When a temptress shows up and rocks lives the quiet is interrupted. When the community finally dissolves the women find themselves as outsiders more like that outsider temptress than they could have imagined. .

Legends of the White Lady- It is hard to be a woman, and lonely, perhaps particularly for a woman who has ot trade on her beauty, but hard and lonely no matter what. The universality of this story, which focuses on women who could not be less generic, is quite a feat.

The Miracle Worker - a layered story of women in an oil community in the UAE, guest workers, both the laborer and the educated class, and a woman with the money to ensure that the people around her preserved her illusions. Each of these women had given up home and family for the lives they had, and none really had what they wanted or had the wherewithal to risk what they did have for more.

The Kontrabida - Filipino stories are thin on the ground. But also apart from the fresh voice, this first story is exceptional. A man returns to his home in Manila to support his mother in the final days of his cruel and destructive father's life. He learns a lot about himself in this time, but more surprising is what he learns about his mother.

Another book that has been unfairly languishing on my physical shelf.