Seven stories plus the title novella (the weakest thing here - a
Southern girl's growing-up with distance and death; too
impressionistic and abrupt to fully command narrative trust) - that
fortify the strengths Hood first displayed in her previous
collection, How Far She Went (1984). A brusque and telling way with
summary stands out as Hood's hallmark. In the best stories here -
"Desire Call of the Wild Hen" and "After Moore" - she can, for
instance, convincingly pack a year of marriage into a paragraph; by
the end of the story, we have two or more lives completely
encapsulated: "They had a good year, and built on a paneled room
for his hunting trophies. His business didn't fail until the third
year. They sold the ski boat, the Hobie, her car, the trail bikes,
the pontoon, the camper, and his pool table. It wasn't enough. They
dropped out of their clubs and he went back to work for his father,
a ten-hour day, plus the grinding commute, and only two weeks
vacation a year." What saves this technique from becoming too
journalistic is Hood's syncopatedly rhythmic prose, more controlled
now than in her debut volume: "Later, at the yacht club, she kept
on till she got wild drunk. It was the first time Larry had seen
her like that, haggardly vivacious. She never did eat right,
worried she'd lose her lure. She had dieted right down to her
nerves on Herbalife, and was so loose in her jewelry she danced out
of her wedding ring. . ." All in all: though a lot of the stories
seem the same - as do the women in them - Hood shows continuing
appeal and brightness, more perhaps as a chronicle- than a
character-maker. (Kirkus Reviews)
Inspired with the essence of Mary Hood's native South and spiced
with intrigue and the dark side of human nature, this collection of
stories offers the drama, humor, and heartache of everyday life and
unexpected tragedy - with more than a few twists. The stories cover
the terrain of transition between old and new, history and the
present, holding on and letting go. In Finding the Chain, Cliffie
struggles to overcome her ties to the past and forge a beginning
with her newly formed family. Moths shows how one man's fortitude,
friends, and love of nature help him see his life of poverty in a
new light. In the title novella, Delia struggles to overcome her
fears of separation and abandonment in the face of her father's
suicide. With characters, situations, and settings that capture the
turmoil of lives - and of a region - caught in transition between
the past and present, the stories of And Venus Is Blue portray both
the uncompromising harshness of life and the power of human
tenacity.
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