After reading Follow Me, I had very high expectations for the remainder of Scott's books. In this collection of short stories, her writing really focuses on character sketches more than narrative, despite that fact that her ability to weave together plot lines into a cohesive story is second-to-none. After my initial disappointment that the stories were not as compelling as what I found in Follow Me, I realized that this collection was a good resource for me as a writer. I spent a lot of time focused on her description of characters - the way they moved, spoke, smelled, dressed, and behaved. Rather than feeling like an outside observing a situation unfolding, I found that I was very much side by side with the characters, learning about their unqiue personality quirks and histories. As a writer, this book was very helpful to me from a character study point-of-view. It answers all of the questions that an author must consider to create characters that truly spring from the page. It reminded me of break-outs you might read in preparation for a theatre performance. They are the back stories for colorful characters who could each easily be made into their own full-length novels.
I went to the library, looking for another book by Joanna Scott and picked this up instead, thinking it was a novel. I was disappointed to see it was short stories, but I'm trying to be more open to the genre. So, I opened it. And, now that I've closed it, I'm keeping my long-standing prejudice. These stories are forgettable, so much so that I had to thumb backwards to refresh my memory of only a few days. I didn't care about the characters, either. The moral of the story is to open and skim the books before I take them home from the library. Now, to wrestle with the question of second chances and redemption with Scott's novel, Tourmaline.
