Lost and The Old Folks' Party Book

You know that feeling when you're reading the works of a really good story-teller, the feeling that you're in good hands and are in for a real treat? Skepticism that slowly grows into trust, trust that grows into expectation, expectation that grows into anticipation?

Gina Ochsner is a good and successful example of discovery of a favorite author through recommendation. A friend recommended 'People I Wanted to Be' long ago, and I was sufficiently intrigued by the title alone to want to read it.

'People I Wanted to Be' consists of shortstories about heartaches and follies and loneliness and a different kind of courage. Most have a decidedly eastern European flavor to them, which is exotic enough in itself, what with the oiled carp and Orthodox church icons needing to be kissed, but what make the stories in this collection really shine are the characters. A mother who's lost three of her children in a series of miscarriages, a lonely painter unhappy with his life and longing to ask the pretty artist in his office for coffee but ending up running errands for the whole office, two coroners who are probably no more alive than the corpses they work on, a man cheated out of the children he wanted to have by a woman he loves. The stories read like especially tragic fairytale, the storytelling tight and liquid and sharply beautiful.