Stories by Anne Panning
January 1, 1992 5.5 x 8.5 160 pages 978-0-918273-95-6
Short stories depicting individuals trying to live with and without their dysfunctional families, clinging to whatever stability they can find.
Newcomer Panning tracks the dreams and travails of a passel of hard-luck Minnesotans. A chronically depressed, perpetually medicated woman (Im Joan, the sick one, dont mind when I throw my lamp against the wall) uneasily coexists with her older sister Lillian and Lillians alcoholic boyfriend (I hate him and he hates me). An unsightly facial cyst hampers Rollie, a lab technician, in finding a girlfriend; loyal Harlan, an 18-year-old hired farmhand, is unfairly booted from his job when his wife is nine months pregnant; 12-year-old Ivans father ran off with the librarian, leaving him to cope with his unbalanced mother and a styful of unruly pigs; and trailer-park denizen Lizzie has an alcoholic father who ekes out a meager living as a barber, and a farmer uncle who sexually abuses his daughter in Lizzies presence. This barrage of indignities and sorrows fails to juice up Pannings mostly flat and mediocre prose. However, the title story about a husbands happy remarriage in the wake of a car accident that renders his beloved first wife brain-damagedis poignant and skillful. Here a chorus of voicesthe husband, both his wives, his daughter by his first marriagedemonstrates lifes random preciousness and precariousness. Publishers Weekly