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O Street
Powerful stories of a woman caught in the long shadow cast by the love of her motherThe tightly linked stories of Corrina Wycoff's gripping debut collection follow the life of Elizabeth Dinard. Raised in poverty by a schizophrenic single mother who self-medicates with heroin, Elizabeth experiences a childhood fraught with emotional and financial insecurity, as well as dark...more
Paperback, 184 pages
Published
April 2nd 2007
by University of Illinois Press
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This book makes me wonder about the difference between linked stories and a novel. Time gaps are common in novels, as are point of view shifts. No answers on this yet, just a floating question.
I loved O Street. My highest praise for Wycoff is that rarely have I seen a horrifying detail so expertly described. I thought about one small detail for weeks afterward, almost always with a shudder.
The characters are rich and contradictory, with a compelling combination of sympath...more
I loved O Street. My highest praise for Wycoff is that rarely have I seen a horrifying detail so expertly described. I thought about one small detail for weeks afterward, almost always with a shudder.
The characters are rich and contradictory, with a compelling combination of sympath...more
The profound conflict in being compelled to love your mother, even when she can't return anything. Subtle, unsentimental, harrowing, but not depressing.
I picked up this book for free at BEA. This short collection of linked short stories, while sometimes entertaining, felt so emotionally manipulative that I just couldn't get into it. The topics covered - mental illness, heroin addiction, poverty, rape - tug at the heartstrings, and thus, in this case, inspire narrative laziness. Wycoff oversimplifies schizophrenia: the suffering mother views her daughter as "contaminated," her idealized older brother as pure and "white." ...more
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This book opens a portal into the dark side of modern capitalism, the author mysteriously guides one through to emerge just a little bit changed. This book is worth picking up.
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Wycoff sets her spotlight on Elizabeth, who negotiates the greased ladder of social class from a childhood with her addicted, schizophrenic mother to a middle-class life with her lover, to places in between. O Street is dark; it's also mighty compelling.
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