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The Sin Eater and Other Stories
Damage suffuses The Sin Eater and Other Stories. From within Elizabeth Frankie Rollins' construct of the blighted home an adulterous husband calls on the services of a stranger to expunge his guilt, a young couple is diagnosed with the bubonic plague, and a bored woman finds herself growing a tail. Yet these others don't dwell; instead, they frame themselves in a way that is sound in structure and sentiment and plunges them from metaphor into modern-day marvel. In the evocative stories of this debut collection, even the tightest crevices dazzle with restorative possibility.
- GenresFiction
146 pages, Paperback
First published February 4, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 12, 2013
I think this is a great book. Obviously.
March 7, 2013
I received a free copy of this book from Goodreads.com. The review blurbs on the back didn't really tell me much about, or prepare me for, the stories I would find inside. Not a single one of the blurbs told me what this collection of stories was really about: relationships. But the blurbs are right; Elizabeth Frankie Rollins' storytelling is haunting and beautiful and wonderful.
Here is a collection of stories that tells us about the interconnectedness of individuals, be it through direct relationships or just by the actions of others that reverberate into the lives of strangers. These stories tell us about others and ourselves, sometimes quite literally as in The Sin Easter, in which Rollins places us, the reader, into the story. She tells us what we say and how we feel. And we feel tense and guilt. In fact, Rollins' storytelling infuses the whole collection with tension. The characters are waiting for something to happen, be it the arrival of a visitor, as in the The New Plague, or perhaps it is something never to be known, a finale cut short such as The Appeal of Chaos. Reading these stories pulls you into a recognizable but surreal world, though The Ruins is more surreal than others. Even This Boy in History is a story in a place we'd recognize, though sadly it could be one of many places these days. It is always the characters and their relationships that anchors us to the surreal scenes. Rollins makes us empathize with their pain and sadness and guilt. We feel their losses and their hopes. In a few short pages, Rollins is able to bond us to her nameless characters, adding to the layers of relationships she writes about.
Here is a collection of stories that tells us about the interconnectedness of individuals, be it through direct relationships or just by the actions of others that reverberate into the lives of strangers. These stories tell us about others and ourselves, sometimes quite literally as in The Sin Easter, in which Rollins places us, the reader, into the story. She tells us what we say and how we feel. And we feel tense and guilt. In fact, Rollins' storytelling infuses the whole collection with tension. The characters are waiting for something to happen, be it the arrival of a visitor, as in the The New Plague, or perhaps it is something never to be known, a finale cut short such as The Appeal of Chaos. Reading these stories pulls you into a recognizable but surreal world, though The Ruins is more surreal than others. Even This Boy in History is a story in a place we'd recognize, though sadly it could be one of many places these days. It is always the characters and their relationships that anchors us to the surreal scenes. Rollins makes us empathize with their pain and sadness and guilt. We feel their losses and their hopes. In a few short pages, Rollins is able to bond us to her nameless characters, adding to the layers of relationships she writes about.
January 2, 2018
Elizabeth Frankie Rollins is spellbinding. These stories swirl with themes of destruction - a smattering of buboes indicating plague, a woman next door smashing everything inside and outside her house, the sin eater who becomes more bruised and swollen the more of your evils she eats. The characters seem stunned by their own ability to destroy: "It looked as though I had built a ruin on purpose," or "We often heard her say, I can't take it anymore, but we were witnesses to all she could and did take."
December 23, 2014
Of all my good friends who are published authors, Frankie is my favorite! Okay, seriously, her renderings of absurd stillness in chaos come from the same love of language and life magic that has attracted me since childhood. So many of these stories will stay with the reader for years. It happens that before I knew the author, I had read The Boy the year it won our local City Paper Fiction Contest, and it was one of the few winners that crawled into my bloodstream, where still the story resides. Chilling, beautiful, funny, heartbreaking...all the usual platitudes are deserved. An author you should get to know on the page (oh, and in person, she's a fabulous human being).
May 30, 2013
This debut collection of stories is a pleasure to read. Often dark, occasionally laced with Rollins' own brand of magical realism, the stories are lively,varied,and freighted with enough surprises and memorable characters to sustain your interest. I look forward to her next work.
July 5, 2013
Frankie is a lovely person and an equally as lovely writer. This collection is fantastic!
May 13, 2016
Elizabth Rollins brings fierce and tender writing in this collection. Brilliant and textured. My students consistently love her work.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews