cover image THE HANDYWOMAN STORIES

THE HANDYWOMAN STORIES

Lenore McComas Coberly, . . Ohio Univ./Swallow, $16.95 (162pp) ISBN 978-0-8040-1044-3

Coberly taps into the lost tradition of rural storytelling in her uneven debut collection, consisting of 20 interlocking stories that capture the flavor of smalltown life in a series of West Virginia towns during WWII. The author is at her best when she applies her simple, homespun style to a solidly constructed plot, which she does most effectively in "Early Transparent," a story that outlines the tragic consequences of war as a young woman marries her second choice when her boyfriend goes off to war and is presumed dead after being captured in the Philippines. She also does several fine turns exploring other aspects of rural life, most notably in "The Fellowship at Wysong's Clearing," which describes the comic efforts of the town's denizens to deal with a group of nonconformists who arrive to homestead a patch of land outside of town. But Coberly's brevity gets the best of her in many of the shorter entries (some barely longer than a page), which have some nostalgic value as snapshots of the era but are far too incomplete to qualify as stories. "In Which Murder Is Done," for instance, finds a police officer putting his life in danger when he tries to help some abused children. Despite its compelling subject matter, it is woefully underdeveloped. Coberly wears her heart on her sleeve in virtually all of these yarns, and her earnest sense of compassion should appeal to readers seeking to explore country life in a difficult era. (May)