My Christmas present from Mike. Bloom is great to read if you love Lorrie Moore - the closest thing you can get to the real thing. Bliss.

This didn't disappoint on any level. Many of these stories connect in clusters, so you get 3-4 doses of stories about the same set of characters. The effect is that Bloom has sort of written 2 novellas, and thrown in a couple of extra stories too, which suits me fine - her short stories leave me wanting more in the best possible way. Her novel, Away, is absolutely wonderful... and this is just a great collection.

It is really very dark at times, and I had a few nightmares after reading this book right before bed, so beware of that. All of the stories deal with some of the worst, saddest and most unexpectedly ghastly events that life can throw at you, but there is so much here that 'celebrates' life and everything good about it too. The language is blissful, the characters have the familiar flaws of Blooms (and Moore's) earlier stories, and it's just so unexpected, rewarding and truly great. Nothing bad to say about it whatsoever, it's all just very, very good.