Dear Sound of Footstep

This prose collection from Virginia-born newcomer Butler is haunted by her emaciated, cancer-ridden mother, confined to her Richmond, Vir. Hospital bed, even while the author embarks on wild flights of escapist fancy. Alternating descriptions of physical disintegration with fascination over flight and space, Butler names ""Sea Vixen Heart Gloster Javelin"" for the first postwar aircrafts to dazzle audiences with aviation techniques-but which also produced fatal, breathtaking accidents. As her mother deals with her fatal illness over the course of years, Butler and her sister attend high school (where Butler is often reprimanded for being ""in the clouds""), grow estranged from their absentee father, and venture into the world outside. Much of the work has the immediacy of notebook entries, such as Butler's poignant return to her childhood beach house in ""Stingray Point""; the affecting, scattershot anecdotes of ""The Book of Concealed Hearts""; and the title story's meditation on spatial relationships and illusion, which enlists quotes from forward-thinkers like Goethe and Yves Klein. Butler's slapdash use of punctuation effectively bolsters the not-unpleasant feeling of distortion, disorientation and weightlessness that pervades these pieces.