Double Dutch

Trunkey’s debut short story collection shows flashes of real creative and literary talent. Unfortunately, that talent often gets mired in sentimentality. Many of the stories are in the urban magic realism tradition, including “Night Terror,” about a single mother who worries that her toddler may be the reincarnation of a terrorist; “Ursus Arctos Horribilis,” in which a man’s wife switches bodies with a grizzly bear; and “The Windspir Sisters’ Home for the Dying,” about sextuplets who open a hospice and divide the workload so that the four living sisters administer to patients’ physical needs and the two deceased sisters administer to patients’ spiritual needs. Others, such as the title story, remain firmly grounded in realism. Like the stories, the characters vary greatly—including Inuit men, Thomas Edison, and a young kid goat and his ancestors—and while Trunkey is courageous in her attempts to portray such a wide spectrum of characters, the results sometimes lack authenticity. Ultimately, Trunkey’s imagination provides the seeds necessary for fabulous stories, but some of those seeds require a stronger voice and less mawkishness in order to thrive. (Mar.)