BOOKLIST, Oct 15, 2001

In the Shadow of Our House. (General Fiction). (Review) Carol Haggas.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2001 American Library Association

Blackwood, Scott. In the Shadow of Our House. Oct. 2001. 176p. Southern Methodist Univ.; dist. by Texas A & M; $19.95 (0-87074-464-X).

Blackwood penetrates life's shadows with disarming candor, piercing the gloom Of contemporary domesticity in a debut collection of nine powerful and poignant short stories. Each resonates with the stark reality born of desolation. Intricately subtle, resolutely ambiguous, Blackwood's stories benefit from multiple visits, encouraging the reader to peel back layer after tenuous layer on a provocative voyage of discovery. Disaffected teenagers, divorced parents, dejected lovers--all face relentless scrutiny as Blackwood probes the camouflaged insecurities, doubts, and betrayals that lead to the dissolution of families and relationships. Elegiac and contemplative, Blackwood's angst-ridden characters face life's major and minor challenges with discouraging results: reconciliations disenchant; marriages disintegrate; parenthood disappoints.
Blackwood excels at spare and singular characterizations, as in the title story's evocative portrait of the elderly physician who unwittingly discovered the bodies at Guyana's Jonestown massacre and remains forever bound by the memory. There are no happy families residing in Blackwood's house, and he views his characters with a distant familiarity, as if from an obscure and illusory vantage point.

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