Laura Lush Knihy

Exploring themes of power and control in female/male relationships, this collection of short stories traces women's experiences from childhood to adulthood. The narratives are thoughtfully arranged to reflect a natural progression in age and perspective, starting from the innocence of youth and moving towards the complexities of adult life. As the stories transition from small-town settings to more urban and foreign landscapes, they offer a subversive and playful examination of the challenges women face in reclaiming their agency.

With arresting perceptions, Lush lays bare the complexities involved in love between the sexes and between family members, revealing the compromises involved in the strongest of loves, and never settling for anything less than total honesty. Yet it is honesty that never verges on the cynical but moves the reader into a world seen clearly and intelligibly so as to reveal the wisdom that one gains from pain. This new collection of poems is nature poetry at its deepest and most insightful, the images connecting to give voice to our many uncertainties as we creep further into an already darkening new century.