In this short story collection, Hale explores various women’s familial and romantic relationships.

Some of the women in these tales have roles as daughters, such as Lavis in the titular tale, who returns home for her father’s 90th birthday after 26 years of estrangement. Others are wives, such as Tasha in “Flight,” who’s separated from a husband who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election; as she grapples with the “lifetime of patronizing male behavior [that] thuds in her head,” Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination hearings play on TV. She remembers her own rape, long ago, and realizes that for men in power, “a woman was only a body to them.” In other stories, women yearn to be creative. Johanna in “A Skeptical Parrot” does sketches that she deems a “necessary occupation”—one that’s more important than marrying a man she doesn’t love. This story also highlights the book’s recurring theme of desire—for freedom, for clarity, for autonomy, and for personal fulfillment. The widowed Lily in “Cicadas” decides to sleep with another man, and Hale describes this urge as “Upheaval. Immolation. Ruin.” Hale’s lovely prose shows a keen eye for detail, and each character is firmly connected to the place where they reside. In “Motes,” for instance, Hale describes “mornings pearled with moisture”; in “Fireflies,” the main character watches a creek’s flowing water, which “made her go satiny inside.” When women are alone, unencumbered and unbeholden to anyone, they engage in intense internal reflection and show reverence for nature—and during these scenes, Hale’s language is luminescent.

A vivid set of tales about connection to other people and to the natural world.