My Blog | The StoryGraph | Facebook | Twitter This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. My thanks to Washington Writers' Publishing House and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Witch Bottle and Other Stories”. The mother’s helplessness and despair has been portrayed beautifully in this story.ģ.6 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each of the stories. Another favourite was “the Stages”, where a woman who has just been told that she has six months to live, is dealt with an unexpected blow by her teen daughter. Not only did I enjoy it for its tongue-in-cheek humour, but also for the fact that it created such an impact while being written in second person – a tough voice to pull off well. My absolute favourite was the title story, “The Witch’s Bottle”. I wanted more from the story.Īs always, I rated the stories individually and each of the six tales reached or crossed the three star mark for me. A couple of the endings left me a bit disappointed, but not because they were bad. But the character sketching and plot development make it a satisfactory experience. Some of the tales are funny while others are more poignant all of them, without exception, are thought-provoking.īecause of the nature of their writing, the tempo of the book is slow-to-medium paced. The varied characters, their vulnerability, and their courage make this an unusual collection. Each of the characters is battling either a real or an imagined issue, and trying their best to bring it to a resolution. The characters range from a butcher’s assistant to a woman artist to a suspicious neighbour to a terminal patient. I couldn’t detect any common underlying thread to the six stories. Whether it's the end of a marriage, or a struggle for fame, these works probe issues that give us that 'shock of recognition' that is the hallmark of great art-wonderful, absorbing fiction that will be read and reread for decades to come.Īn interesting collection of 4 stories and 2 novellas that can best be classified as ‘short tales in literary fiction style’. 'The Stages' is a meditation on one woman's struggle for dignity in the face of divorce and untreatable cancer. 'Untitled Number 20' explores life among women artists at the end of the Flower Power era and the beginning of the Seventies. These narratives range in mood from 'The Lapedo Child,' a tale of discovery and liberation, to 'The Witch Bottle,' a comic examination of a pair of obsessed next-door neighbors.

This prize-winning collection of short stories and two novellas, offers entrancing tales of redemption, betrayal, tradition, and rebellion. From Depression era Mississippi to the suburbs of modern America, to the trials and tribulations of smart young women struggling to make a name for themselves in the arts, Feldman delves deep into the dreams and emotions of regular people and makes them beautiful and accessible.

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