Signs and Wonders
By Alix Ohlin
272 pages;
Vintage Contemporaries
This
wise and whimsical story collection kicks off with a dose of flat reality:
"She was miserable. She hadn't always been, of course. She'd gotten
married in a flurry of sex and promises, wearing a white dress so hideously
confectionary that she felt like...a joke told in crinoline and lace." But
underneath what's being so boldly told lies a network of quieter mysteries. In
the title story, Kathleen (still miserable) paradoxically finds joy and freedom
once she realizes she can't stand her
husband, then proceeds to discover companionship (but not love) in the very
person she detests—a co-worker with a pet canary. People doing things
that undermine their best interests is the terrain where Ohlin writes most
movingly. From "The Idea Man," about a single mother bungling the
love of her life, to "Fork," about a certain Tom who spends all of his
time trying to take care of his girlfriend who spends all her time trying to take care
of her drug-addicted brother—an Iraq War veteran who spends dinner
staring at his silverware, saying, "The tines of a fork. It sounds so
perfect, like chimes. Like a trinity. Like trinity of chimes." Clearly,
there's plenty of playfulness and warmth throughout these stories, but there's plenty
of insight, too. Nobody pulls it together, and nobody falls apart. They simply
go on, doing the unexpected, the admirable and, often, the regrettable, for one
of the oldest reasons in the word—love.
— Leigh Newman