If the Heart Is Lean

"The sixteen stories in Margaret Luongo's If the Heart Is Lean etch sharp portraits of people in odd and sometimes surreal situations who thus have the opportunity to view their lives from a unique perspective. In "Chestnut Season," a young woman stalled in traffic sees her future self parked beside her; in "Boyfriends," the recently deceased protagonist endures eulogies by her ex-beaus and husbands. Other stories touch upon issues of identity, following characters who find themselves in the wrong places, or who find themselves too late. At the advice of their marriage counselor, the couple in "What Nina Wants" take on the personas of Charles Mingus and Nina Simone, speeding down the Pacific Coast Highway in a rented MG, with a loaded gun and an electric bass. Through compact, tightly woven prose, vivid imagery, and a variety of arresting narrative techniques, If the Heart Is Lean zeroes in on the humorous and painful lives of people who are mysteries to themselves."--BOOK JACKET.

Margaret Luongo teaches creative writing at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.