Erin's orange lily; and, Summer loanen and other stories Book

I read a story in this, to knock it off my "to read" list, and am porting over another review from an anthology as the story also appears here. Weldon strikes me as an interesting writer of dark lit, or at least the stories I was directed to (as a reader of horror and the macabre) fall into that area (it may not be true of her fuller output) - writing in the 70s (at least the stories I read), fiercely feminist in a second-wave mode (although someone on Goodreads refers to her as an "anti-feminist feminist" which without knowing details just implies to me that she has the good sense to reject extremes and absolutes), and surprisingly able to note and trenchantly convey passive-aggression and what are no-called "micro-aggressions" (a term I'm not comfortable with as its moved beyond it initial definition into a broader, generalized pop-culture one, but still valid when used correctly). Weldon has a nicely light and breezy style, conversational and informal. Not "horror" stories in the traditional sense, although they do convey disturbing interpersonal relationships and petty cruelty.

"A Good Sound Marriage" - which I read in The Mammoth Book of 20th Century Ghost Stories (given its inclusion in that book, it should come as not surprise that this is not a horror story but instead a lit story in which the "ghost" is a device). Here, a pregnant newlywed suffers through her worries and upset at her husband's absence, only to be visited by the ghost of her wise Grandmother who gives her some life-lived tips about what it means to be a woman, a wife and a mother in this world. A solid lit piece, well-written, if a bit "speechy."

"Through A Dustbin, Darkly" - a new wife is informed by her (thoughtless, juvenile) artist husband's circle of shallow friends of the details surrounding the demise of his previous wife, which they all treat as her own fault and something of a joke. But as the new wife settles in to her new home, the previous wife's unhappiness still seems to linger about the place and, heavily pregnant, the new wife begins to realize just how shallow her husband is, and how she's vaguely being warned. Nice.