With this new collection of nine seamlessly told stories, Mary Borsky demonstrates why she is one of our very best practitioners of the short fiction form. These exquisitely drawn and poignant tales are about women who lead ordinary lives, but who strive for independence and identity, who seek fulfillment in love, but who are often checked by uncertainty, fear, family, children, parents, and lovers. A woman leaves her anthropologist husband when she sees that he cannot relate to her family. A single mother's relationship with a wedding photographer founders on her young daughter's sulky resistance to their union. A troubled young son tests the limits of a mother's unconditional love. An old lover tries to renew an affair with a woman who yearns for love but hesitates to commit to him. A simple small town water-man protects a pregnant teenager from her bullying boyfriend. A Teenaged son feels trapped as he struggles to look after his stroke-addled father while putting up with his desperate mother. A single mother sabotages her own need for love, while her daughter yearns for a new father. A frustrated painter takes revenge on her cheating lover and chooses art over men. A mother is torn between her daughter and her own mother who needs her, but whom she dislikes. These subtly affecting and highly readable tales have much to tell us about the vagaries of the lawless heart: about love sought out, love deferred, and love unrequited. Cobalt Blue is a completely engaging collection of stories from a most gifted writer.
close this panel
