PositiveThe New York Journal of Books... could be the collection to read in 2020 for several reasons, most notably because it focuses on family, home, and loss. As we have been confined to our own homes for the better part of 2020, we may be able to relate more closely to those themes than prior to the pandemic ... Bock takes many less traditional approaches in her writing, such as shifting narrators among characters, even from those who have passed on, as well as shifting time and place. But taken as a whole, the stories weave together a glimpse of the fierce loyalty of a family holding love and loss simultaneously, bringing to mind John Keats’ theory of negative capability, that we are capable of existing in uncertainties, mysteries, or doubts ... The readers, as Caroline, are left holding both the awareness of grief, as well as the promise of hope.
