Sleeping Alone

In Freeman’s delicate and vital debut collection (after the novel On Sal Mal Lane), characters examine their convictions and transform via relationships with others. In “Fault Lines,” Mira, a Black mother from a Philadelphia suburb is presumed by her neighbors to be a nanny because her skin color is darker than her daughter’s. In “The Wake,” a girl named Silvia grows up in a New York City “mousehole” apartment, where she watches her mother, Rene, grieve over the death of a cult leader, her newly found spiritual practice “a riddle” that Sylvia “determine[s] to solve.” Don, a Sri Lankan cheese-making apprentice who lodges in 1969 Dublin with a woman named Madailein and her daughters in “The Irish Girl,” learns about the city through Madailein, whose voice is equally admonishing and loving, and punctuated by a “nicotine-and-chocolate laugh.” The story spans 33 years, and by its end, Don and Madailein “have grown toward each other.” Freeman’s charisma shines on each page of these beautiful stories. This is a treasure. Agent: Nicole Cunningham, Book Group. (June)