Creatures Of Habit (Shannon Ravenel Books (Paperback))

Jill McCorkle's new collection of twelve short stories is peopled with characters brilliantly like usflawed, clueless, endearing. These stories are also animaled with all manner of mammal, bird, fish, reptilealso flawed and endearing. She asks, what don't humans share with the socalled lesser species? Looking for the answer, she takes us back to her fictional home town of Fulton, North Carolina, to meet a broad range of characters facing up to the doubleedged sword life offers hominids. The insight with which McCorkle tells their stories crackles with wit, but also with a deeperand more forgivingwisdom than ever before. In Billy Goats, Fulton's herd of seventh graders cruises the summer nights, peeking into parked cars, maddening the town madman. In Monkeys, a widow holds her husband's beloved spider monkey close along with his deepest secrets. In Dogs, a single mother who works for a veterinarian compares himunfavorablywith his patients. In Snakes, a seasoned wife sees what might have been a snake in the grass and decides to step over it. And, in the exquisite final story, Fish, a grieving daughter remembers her father's empathy for the ugliest of all fishes. The success behind Jill McCorkle's short storiesand her novelsis, as one reviewer noted, her skill as an archaeologist of the absurd, an expert at excavating and examining the comedy of daily life (Richmond TimesDispatch). Yes, and also the tragedy.