cover image A Brief History of Male Nudes in America

A Brief History of Male Nudes in America

Dianne Nelson, Dianne Nelson Oberhansly. University of Georgia Press, $24.95 (152pp) ISBN 978-0-8203-1571-3

Brief, vivid glimpses into the sorrow of imperfect family relationships--especially the sorrow of women--undulate through this carefully crafted but ultimately disappointing collection of 15 short stories. In contemporary small towns and rural settings west of the Mississippi, Nelson describes the everyday discontentments, struggles and solitude of an assortment of sensitive characters. The title story finds a prematurely world-weary teenager concerned by the continuous stream of men she observes heading to and from her mother's bed. In ``The Uses of Memory,'' another mother and daughter must care for a comatose father, one urging him to revive, the other trying to set him free. In ``Dixon,'' a dead man leaves behind a grieving mother and sister who must try to stanch upsetting rumors being spread about him. There is talent and insight at work throughout this collection, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction; each tale is marked by a polished, meditative narrative, rich detail and emotional impact. But the works are better individually than collectively. Their extreme brevity, combined with close similarities of theme and milieu, tends to make the stories blur together, and their abrupt endings, although initially effective, become melodramatic. (Nov.)