cbr12bingo – Orange

“A woman of her word can do what she signed on to do.”

If you need a quick but cathartic sob, this is the book for you. Clocking in at under 150 pages, Sing To It  houses a tiny and brutal collection of stories- some so tiny that they are just a few sentences long. Do not let the brevity fool you; even the most micro of the micro-fiction within will burn you.

Several stories are still playing in my head days later. “Full-Service Shelter” is a beautiful and excruciating missive from a shelter volunteer. Be warned; if you are easily upset by animals in peril you will need to read with caution. and tissues. and the sound machine revved up so no one can hear you sob. In “The Correct Grip” a woman receives a phone call from the wife of the stranger that assaulted her. The wife wants to know: is she pretty?

I would call the final story a novella, but really it is the longest of the very brief pieces. A woman recounts her life- from teen, to teacher, to recovering disgrace- from a rapidly deteriorating rental on the Gulf Coast. She’s stark in her honesty; she’s an observer of her own life. She’s cool but never cold.

I say “curs-ed,” using two sylla- bles. A man I once thought I liked struggled to say something ugly at the end, and what he came up with was calling me “the curs-ed seed from the curs-ed tree.” I like parting shots; you can’t take them seriously and they’re often pretty funny.

There are hidden references to our current timeline scattered throughout, as well as tiny jewels of pop-culture.