Though these stories by Dede Reed range widely over space and time—from Ireland to Anatolia, from a young couple seeking independence on a ranch to a woman in late middle age facing the next chapter in her life—what they share is a minute, almost Chekhovian attention to the nuances of everyday life. In precise, painterly language, Reed captures her characters in moments of displacement, moments in their lives where a shift is taking place—though they themselves might not yet be aware of it.
When the Soviets invade Prague in the summer of 1968, five-month-old Zofie is separated from her mother. Left on a peasant's doorstep, she grows up under the constraints of a Communist regime, with no sense of where she came from or who she is. The warm embrace of a friend’s family and the gratification she finds in the study of literature and languages inspire her hopes for a career and a family of her own. Told from multiple points of view and spanning several decades, Velvet Spring insightfully portrays the complex bonds between mothers and daughters. In chronicling lives subjected to the caprices of history, politics, and chance, this story is also a testament to the consolations of art.
In the spare language of these vignettes, Other Lives offers a taste of life in Mexico. A woman discovers the origin of her birth, another grapples with the consequences of faith in a rural village, Cuban refugees arrive in Veracruz, and a maid’s child wanders through rooms in a patrón’s hacienda are some of the themes in this collection. Sketches of the countryside, villages and towns where these diverse people inhabit fill the pages with color and local customs.
"These stories are like butterflies, shimmering, fleeting and iridescent. They alight on their characters in moments of sadness or anger, fear or loneliness, and with flickers of insight, lives are transformed. Dede Reed's prose is precise and quiet, her eye is clear and open to possibility. She writes eloquently from a generous heart."
— Deborah Weisgall, author of The World Before Her
Nothing is to be changed in the old summer camp. The broken bathroom mirror that frames everyone’s faces, the knotty-pine cupboard’s cracked knobs, rickety tables, worn wicker chairs and crushed cushions. Fall and winter come and go with windy nights when beech trees plunge and bend, branches break, leaves pile into porch corners. Stray air seeps through walls and windows, snow drifts under doors, curtains sway, sheet music on the piano rustles; one spring day, a page turns…
