Sleepovers

April 15, 2020
This collection of short stories grabs a fine-toothed comb to examine the inner lives of rural Americans in the twenty-first century. Each piece focuses on one character in the same town: a teenage mother, a husband with a wandering eye, a disabled salesman. All have spent their lives among the soybean fields, hoping for rain, watching hunted animals drain of blood, and observing time pass with the landscape unchanged. The most endearing aspect of the collection is the age range in points of view. Some stories are told by curious children, some by runaway teens, some by wise but fading elderly folks. Phillips is precise in her specificity: details of these lives jump off the page. A woman is forced to drive hours to the nearest Apple store to fix her iPhone. A college student visiting home wants nothing more than to eat Hamburger Helper on the couch with her father. An addict's mistress sits on the front lawn of her house, spinning in an office chair, contemplating pregnancy. A deeply human, unforgettable debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)