Review of Here in the World by Victoria Lancelotta

As other reviewers have noted, this is not a collection of 13 short stories, but vignettes. In other words, there is no "beginning, middle, and end" in the sense of "short story." This is slice of life" fiction. No real plot, exposition, conflict, or dénouement.

Having said that, if you enjoy watching a person work the word-craft, you'll enjoy every one of these gems. The enjoyment is immediate and sticks with you. I mean: from the first sentence of each vignette you'll find yourself pulled into and strung along by Lancelotta's prose immediately--

Listen. Here is a love story. "The Guide"

This is the sort of air that sticks, the kind you want to pull off you, away from your skin, ... "What I Know"

There were these things I saw through the window: ... "Fesitval"

The man in the house next door is finished dying. "Other Water"

--all the way to...not a "conclusion" but a "leaving" I think is a better word. We leave that world Lancelotta painted for us in each vignette, painted so carefully. In each sentence you can feel her painstakingly work the words. We leave each world touched by her prose. That's the power and the craft in the haunting. It sticks with you. It's made to stick with you. As one of her characters says in "In Houses": I have been opened up, rewritten.

So will you.