Love's Shadow: Stories by Women

Tess Gallagher and Mary Morris are among the contributors to this volume of stories and poems exploring the dark side of love. Each selection inevitably ends with a woman wronged, empty or alone. A young woman lures a minister away from his prim wife only to discover that answered prayers do not necessarily bring happiness. A junior high school student has her initiation into the world of sex when she is trapped by two older boys in the audience of an X-rated movie. And in an almost hallucinatory piece, a battered woman envisions herself rising up and away from the beating she is receiving and ``going to the movies / To watch other people suffer.'' While these selections expertly conjure a flux of emotions, others strain too hard to deliver a world divided into us (women) and them (men). A heart-wrenching depiction of child abuse, for instance, deteriorates into a rather clinical analysis of woman as the product of society. Ultimately, this collection might provide solace for a woman who wants to savor the pain of a lost relationship. But it is perhaps too unrelentingly grim for the less woeful reader. Sumrall co-edited Women of the 14th Moon: Writings on Menopause. (Sept.)