George Rabasas collection of short stories, Glass Houses, received The Writers Voice Capricorn Award for Excellence in Fiction and the Minnesota Book Award for Short Stories. His novel, Floating Kingdom, received the Minnesota Book Award for Fiction. And his most recent novel, The Cleansing, was named a Book Sense Notable. His short fiction has appeared in various literary magazines, such as Story Quarterly, Glimmer Train, The MacGuffin, South Carolina Quarterly, Haydens Ferry, American Literary Review, and in several anthologies. Rabasa was born in Maine, raised in Mexico, and now lives in Minnesota."
These are subtle stories. They are surreal, but so gracefully executed that I felt as though I were peering through the walls of someone else's life. This effect is heightened by the fact that the stories often come in media res, that is with no explanation of where or why. This is as much not bewildering as it is eerie, as if I had just started watching a family or group of people. Next time I'm at the library I'm definitely looking for more by Rabasa.
Short stories by local MN author. As always with a collection, some stories were better than others. As a whole, there was some good humor, and some true emotion in a few of the stories.