Every Shallow Cut

Every Shallow Cut

by Tom Piccirilli

Reading can sometimes be hard going when the story is about someone having a hard go of it, hanging off the edge of sanity. But although you can feel Piccirilli’s protagonist’s fingers getting slippery, his hold on the precipice getting more and more uncertain as the story progresses, this book sweeps you along, and you will finish it in a just a few hours. This is partly because the book is only 162 pages, the pages are small, and the spacing is wide. It is also because the writing is fluid, unpretentious, real. And the protagonist could be you, or me, or anyone we know. Not that you or I would end up on the last page, doing whatever it is he decides to do. We’re not sure what happens in the end, and that’s probably a good thing, as it might allow the reader to create distance, to say, “WELL! I would NEVER do THAT!” What he actually does may also be beside the point. The thought processes that lead up to the action are the real focus. And the scariest part of it all – the reason Piccirilli’s work is in the suspense/thriller genre – is that the devastating life events and the grief that results are so undeniably real that, if we’re honest, we can’t draw a thick line between ourselves and the protagonist. There is a part of us that is revolted – and a part of us that understands. Readers may find that compassion to be more frightening than out-and-out terror.

The Red Garden

Alice Hoffman finds the part of us that feels the world instinctively, and brings it into kinship with every aspect of the physical world. Transported by her language of flora and fauna, we arrive in a spiritual world where physics and spirit cannot be separated.

Less magical than its predecessors, The Red Garden is for that reason more enthralling. Hoffman has, at times, taken the magical bit a bit too far. But here, as in The Story Sisters, she carries us on the back of bears and the wings of bees into reality, raw and subtle at the same time.

Each chapter is a story unto itself, and could stand alone in a collection of short stories. Yet there are threads woven throughout, linking the generations of inhabitants in one small Massachusetts town from one end of 300 years to the other. And it is in these links, disguised as mere folklore or gossip or impossible legend, that meaning is found.

If you are an Alice Hoffman fan, you will love this book. If you have liked some of her work and been disappointed by some, you will love this book. If you have not read Alice Hoffman, this is as good a place as any to begin your devotion.