Blink and you won’t be able to figure out how she does it. But then, don’t blink. Stare as hard as you can. Retrace favorite paragraphs and lines and still be mystified about her pointillistic ability to create the images and lines that take the breath out of your body and create the unforgettable lost girls ... Even when they can begin to discern the magician’s obvious and ordinary tricks, they still seek to find a form of extraordinary magic to trust in and live through.
The female characters in Lost Girls both startle and uplift us, but most importantly they demand to be seen ... While these stories do feature experiences of repression and loss, they do not focus so much on the traumas as the resilience of the women surviving them. A quiet defiance pulses throughout the work ... Through vivid snapshots of female struggle, Morris demonstrates the power of women acknowledging one another — and themselves — in a world where they are continually diminished.
Each story is realistic, entirely accessible. Some come perilously close to being merely anecdotes, recordings of remembered events. The best involve a moment of acceptance, illumination or even revenge ... highly readable. The stories are varied—not all painful or grotesque and the book deserves a readership.
Morris shows great range with her characters, from young girls to older women ... Many of the stories here clock in at three or four pages, and the majority are under ten. While all showcase Morris’s talents for details, some of the shorter feel less fleshed out and more like character studies, albeit well-drawn ones. Overall, this is a beautiful and contemplative collection, exploring the supposedly simple lives of complicated women who survive grief, loneliness, and love, and emerge on the other side having found themselves.
Morris’ prose is full of vibrant detail, whether the tale is set decades in the past or in the present day ... The author also excels at shorter stories; most collected here are fewer than 10 pages in length. Morris has an ability to wring a lot of emotion out of a few scant details, giving the feeling of a much longer work. Many share settings and characters, which contributes to a sense of interconnectivity and added meaning ... A varied set of tales from a skilled practitioner of the short form.
