Pray for Yourself and Other Stories

Anne Calcagno's exhilaratingly original first collection of short stories vividly captures the textures of women's lives. Her style is at once idiomatic and metaphorical; her dramatic situations are extreme, edgy, and utterly convincing. Calcagno's characters grapple with problems ranging from domestic violence to obsession with body weight, and speak with conviction and authority about the complex obstacles in their lives. She writes of the desperation of fragile families, of sibling rivalries, of husbands and wives hanging onto or running from each other.