This debut story collection from Prairie Schooner
editorial assistant Flanagan is the second in Nebraska's Flyover Fiction series, named, with ironic Midwestern self-deprecation, for the "flyover" states on which its books center. The title story leads off: Eleanor, a 31-year-old Omaha widow, a former Best Western receptionist who forged credentials when it converted to a hospital, works as a medical assistant in that hospital and takes in a laser surgery patient as a renter so she can make her mortgage payments; Eleanor photographs her young female tenant's neo-Nazi tattoos covering her body for her file of "visible mistakes," and the two eventually identify ties that bridge age and class barriers. In "Intervention," another standout among the 12 pieces, Kate's boyfriend drags her to Myrtle Beach, where his mother has plotted to end his father's drinking; rather than a somber attempt to turn someone's life around, the intervention (the third in three years) most closely resembles a Super Bowl party. The homogeneity of Flanagan's characters, as bright and clear as they are, threatens to spoil the whole, but the inventiveness of her deceptively mild plots keep common themes fresh. (Sept.)
