Dantiel W. Moniz

This book contains wonderfully jarring and alarming prose
“We excused ourselves. Anyway, we might have thought, haven’t we always eaten the young?”
(p. 148), from “Exotics.”
“Pastor pulled him aside last Sunday and told him the devil came in many forms, but most shaped like women.” (p. 36) from “Tongues.”

Moniz presents a remarkable set of short stories. Her characters are engaging and memorable. She depicts intense friendships, some with blurry boundaries and paradoxical aspects of love and hate. Additionally, she explores women’s issues, politics, and religion through her characters’ thoughts and dialog. Each story is told through the eyes of a first-person narrator. The characters use potent words that sometimes set me on edge but convey themes and messages pointedly.

Grief is a central theme with the loss of babies, friends, spouses, and parents. The loss of innocence, childhood and security also causes grief. Characters refuse to be victims. The stories provoke readers to question social norms and challenge assumptions. The author attempts to excise stigmas about sensitive topics. She emphasized transparency in expressing feelings and thoughts. Additionally, the characters’ issues are portrayed alongside world issues.

The discussion of mother-and-daughter relationships is heartfelt and painful in several stories. The author seems wiser than her years in recognizing the difficulties of accepting one’s parent as a human with flaws and vulnerabilities. Likewise, the husband and wife dynamics are front and center in stories such as “Loss of Heaven” and “Feast.”

She expresses painfully specific descriptions of bodily experiences and how the senses perceive the world. Each story touches a bit on darkness and light that humans recognize in each other. There are 54 uses of the word dark in the book, and light is used 71 times. But these are literal citations. The marvels of these short stories are the deep and unique depictions of the duality of human existence. I couldn’t help but wonder about the darkness and light each person emanates.

None of the stories in this collection has a clear resolution. In an interview with the author, she said she purposely wrote stories with ambiguous endings because “it allows you to think of the characters as living off the page. They will continue to make choices when the story ends.”

This writing is amazing!

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