cover image We Who Live Apart

We Who Live Apart

Joan Connor. University of Missouri Press, $19.95 (138pp) ISBN 978-0-8262-1293-1

If stylistic variety is meant to alert the reader to the author's proficiency in narrative technique, then Connor (Here on Old Route 7) has succeeded in this array of 13 short stories. She runs the gamut of first-, second- and third- person points of view, shifts from male to female narrators and even throws in a few folktales, though most of the stories are set in contemporary New England. A central theme is the plight of the lonely and isolated, but the collection is nevertheless disjointed and lacking in cohesion. Connor's downtrodden protagonists include a pair of motherless children (""The Thief of Flowers""), a recovering alcoholic declared an unfit mother (""October"") and a recently divorced school teacher whose home is burglarized (""Tea and Comfortable Advice""). The title story, pieced together like a patchwork quilt, lights briefly on the fates of the various childless women the narrator has known; the narrator herself maintains a quiet resolve in the face of a predictable, mundane future without husband or offspring. To their credit, Connor's women never quite succumb to their loneliness or despair, confronting instead the single life with all the risks and fears (and satisfactions) it entails. In the end this uneven collection is like an unknown artist's CD picked up at randomDa couple of snappy tunes, maybe a hit or two, but mostly bland, familiar pieces. (Oct.)