Old Crimes

September 1, 2023

Beloved author McCorkle (the multi-starred Hieroglyphics) returns with a collection of stories about characters dealing sometimes inventively with unexpected hardship. A woman finds comfort in her slow hearing loss because it means she can avoid listening to her husband's caustic comments, while a telephone lineman feeling lost in the digital world turns to his family for support. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 9, 2023
In this satisfying collection from McCorkle (Hieroglyphics), characters attempt to bridge gender, political, and generational divides in hopes of coming to terms with a world where “evil and violent things had been happening since the beginning of time.” In “Commandments,” a group of women who were dumped by the same man get together regularly at a café and trade stories about their former beau. When their free-spirited younger server, Candy, hears them dishing about the unnamed man (whom they claim had “perfected the art of ruining women”), Candy offers unexpected wisdom. In “The Last Station,” a recently widowed woman lugs a cross from one end of her yard to the other, simulating Jesus’s plight while airing grievances big and small—the rise of white nationalists, drama at her book club—to a shocked audience of neighbors. The standout “Sparrow” finds a newly divorced mother befriending an older woman at her child’s little league games who provides the validation the mother needs regarding her children’s well-being. Though the collection feels somewhat repetitive, McCorkle serves up plenty of humor and heartache each time she weaves a tale of interconnected relationships, and often pushes her stories toward empathetic and surprising climaxes. McCorkle fans will gobble this up. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner.

Starred review from November 1, 2023
In her fifth story collection, McCorkle explores the emotional toll of keeping secrets and making compromises on her mostly female protagonists. In "Low Tones," a mother is wracked with guilt at having once yelled Don't make me slap the shit out of you at her sweet little son, even though she's done far worse by giving cover to her abusive husband. "Swinger" is about a young woman named Marnie who's left with next to nothing after the still-married man with whom she's been living for three years suddenly dies. Once a swinger, her boyfriend has a box of nude photos of past lovers; Marnie is haunted by the absence of her image in the box, the fact that she could not bring herself to ask for more from their relationship because "she was the kind of invisible woman who might be referred to as sturdy or dependable, smart and practical." The cost of past mistakes is often regret, or even rage. In "A Simple Question," Anna looks back on her friendship with Muriel, an older woman trying to parent a difficult son, and realizes the extent to which her youth made her self-involved. In "The Last Station," a mother performs her own version of the Stations of the Cross every year in her front yard to call attention to social injustice. After her husband's death, however, her performance becomes an expression of her disappointment--in how hard she worked as mother, wife, and librarian, and how little she got in return. "I want more," she announces. "I want my turn and yet, here I am and it's all over--finished." McCorkle is a brilliant storyteller who makes use of the retrospective voice at key moments and employs peripheral characters as narrators to underscore the extent to which trauma and regret cast long shadows. The past is never too far from the present. Wonderfully rich and emotionally complicated stories.

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Starred review from November 1, 2023
McCorkle returns to the short story following her acclaimed novel Hieroglyphics (2020). One narrator recalls a guidance counselor who preached that "all choices have consequences." McCorkle's characters, their choices or lack of them and the dilemmas they produce are wide ranging, but each receives her attention as she sketches their lives in mesmerizing detail. A young couple takes a disappointing trip; empty-nest parents hope their children can remain civil; a young teacher has a brief but intense friendship with an older colleague. We meet a telephone line worker who loathes new technology, an abrasive PE teacher, and in another story, his meek widow, who spies on neighbors. Each story is powerful individually, but it is the building momentum that makes the collection so strong, as its themes--parenting, illness, awkward relationships, misunderstandings--weave together to gorgeous effect. McCorkle's generous details are entrancing, particularly when narrators are overwhelmed by their memories, which are relayed at such a fast pace that we feel, alongside them, that time has piled up. Often funny, evenly darkly comic at times, McCorkle's memorable collection calls to mind Alice Munro and Charles Baxter.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 29, 2024

McCorkle's fifth short story collection gathers loosely connected narratives of fairly ordinary people who have endured life-changing circumstances. Through their stories, McCorkle delivers a balance of humor, warmth, poignancy with remorse, even atonement, and illustrates her characters' intense longing to connect to others, especially those from the past. Consider "The Lineman," in which a telephone lineman ruminates over the past misdeeds that led to the demise of his marriage and the impact of all things digital--his ex-wife has taken up with a professor of digital communications. Another standout is "Sparrow," whose narrator, a newly divorced mother of two, is navigating her new life in a new town. She attends her son's Little League game, ostensibly to meet others and learn more about her community. McCorkle's depiction of the fans at the game is spot on and yet still manages to surprise. VERDICT Great short story writers encapsulate and distill the experience and emotions of a character in what amounts to a mini-novel. McCorkle demonstrates why she is considered a virtuoso of the form. This new collection will not disappoint her bevy of fans and may introduce some new readers to her flock of followers.--Faye A. Chadwell

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.