The Blue Woman and Other Stories by Mary Flanagan

This collection centers on stories of women.  A few focus on women within a family, but the rest cover women in various stages of their lives.  Some are traveling, some are mothers, some are just entering adulthood, some are elderly.  I always find it tough to discuss books of short stories, because it feels like describing a single story will ruin it.  Several of these stories shine above the rest, as is generally the case.  But on the whole, I came away from the book feeling that Flanagan really respects and likes women, but that she doesn’t write her female characters with an axe to grind or an agenda in mind.  I appreciate that.

I’m guessing that few people are familiar with Flanagan.  I don’t know why she doesn’t get more attention.  She’s an American ex-pat who apparently lives in London these days, and her willful dedication to travel allows Flanagan to write the dispossessed and foreign quite well.  The stories are set either in the US, the UK, or in Greece, where Flanagan has apparently spent a fair amount of time.  Her distance from the country of her birth shows up every once in a while–at one point, an American kid in a story refers to her "maths" homework.  We don’t say maths here–it’s a British-ism.  But apart from small things a better editor could have corrected, I think this book is a great showing, and I’m likely to re-read several of the stories.

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