cover image Mourning Doves: Stories

Mourning Doves: Stories

Judy Troy. Scribner Book Company, $20 (160pp) ISBN 978-0-684-19369-4

Despite the examples of trailer park minimalism crowding the recent fictional landscape, Troy's first collection of stories (all originally published in the New Yorker ) is a welcome addition to the field. Set in mobile homes, Kmarts and blue-collar bars in small towns throughout the heartland, these brief, stunning pieces demonstrate an emotional depth often lacking in similar fiction. Troy's memorable characters refuse to allow their difficult circumstances to diminish their capacity to love and hope. Survivors of divorce and the deaths of loved ones, they create makeshift families out of the rubble of their dreams and struggle to carry on with the business of life. The title story shows a young waitress reaching out to the grief-stricken father of her dead boyfriend and standing by her mother through a string of relationships with polyester cowboys. In ``Fidelity,'' a divorced man witnesses his son's kindness to his own dying father and regrets having betrayed his wife. ``Looking for Love'' chronicles a lonely man's attempt to care for his wife's unhappy daughter, herself a mother at 15. The combined effect of these starkly realistic tales is richly satisfying. (June)