Megan Mayhew Bergman portrays women who wrestle with problematic inheritances: a modern glass house on a treacherous California cliff, a water-starved ranch, and an abandoned plantation on a river near Charleston. Bergman asks the questions: what are we leaving behind for our descendants to hold, and what price will they pay for our mistakes?
Bergman’s characters have upheld noxious traditions for so long that poison tastes like love; and the only character left standing hopes, sympathetically, that a terrible storm or raging fire will someday burn it all down.
... seven imaginative and compelling short stories, and, finally, a provocative short novel, called Indigo Run, which makes me believe she has a novel in her.
[A] new and compelling short story collection in which the past and present are in constant communication, weaving the intricate ties between families and lovers and their hopes and disappointments ... Ultimately, these are stories you want to live in, uninhabitable as they may be for the characters. In a collection perfectly suited for our moment, Bergman examines what remains of what was given to us and suggests how we might move on as the world continues to change around us.
