A Perfect Stranger

In Roxana Robinson’s lucid and elegant prose, her characters’ inner worlds open up to us, revealing private emotional cores that are familiar in their needs, their secrets, and their longings. These people tell us the truth–not only about themselves, their relationships, and their lives, but about ourselves as well. In “Family Christmas,” a young girl takes a holiday trip to her grandparents’, where the formal atmosphere is shattered by a mysterious and chaotic event that she knows she’s too young to understand but struggles to comprehend. In “Blind Man,” a college professor copes with the onslaught of grief after his daughter’s death. In “The Face Lift,” two college friends renew their bond across a great cultural divide. The sad and hilarious “Assistance” flawlessly details the tragicomic aspects of ageing–seen through the eyes of a daughter-turned-caretaker. The terrors of illness are explored in “The Treatment,” and in “Assez,” a trip to Provence reveals the true volatility of love–and reminds us that we often don’t realize that what we have is enough until it’s gone. A Perfect Stranger powerfully and affectingly examines the complex, intricate network of experiences that binds us to one another. These stories are tender, raw, lovely, and fine–and they reaffirm Roxana Robinson’s place at the forefront of modern literature.