OLD CRIMES

In her fifth story collection, McCorkle explores the emotional toll of keeping secrets and making compromises on her mostly female protagonists.

In “Low Tones,” a mother is wracked with guilt at having once yelled Don’t make me slap the shit out of you at her sweet little son, even though she’s done far worse by giving cover to her abusive husband. “Swinger” is about a young woman named Marnie who's left with next to nothing after the still-married man with whom she’s been living for three years suddenly dies. Once a swinger, her boyfriend has a box of nude photos of past lovers; Marnie is haunted by the absence of her image in the box, the fact that she could not bring herself to ask for more from their relationship because “she was the kind of invisible woman who might be referred to as sturdy or dependable, smart and practical.” The cost of past mistakes is often regret, or even rage. In “A Simple Question,” Anna looks back on her friendship with Muriel, an older woman trying to parent a difficult son, and realizes the extent to which her youth made her self-involved. In “The Last Station,” a mother performs her own version of the Stations of the Cross every year in her front yard to call attention to social injustice. After her husband’s death, however, her performance becomes an expression of her disappointment—in how hard she worked as mother, wife, and librarian, and how little she got in return. “I want more,” she announces. “I want my turn and yet, here I am and it’s all over—finished.” McCorkle is a brilliant storyteller who makes use of the retrospective voice at key moments and employs peripheral characters as narrators to underscore the extent to which trauma and regret cast long shadows. The past is never too far from the present.

Wonderfully rich and emotionally complicated stories.