Emergency by Kathleen Alcott

This is a potent, heartbreaking, life-affirming collection. That being said, this is not a "quick" or "light" read. Alcott's sentences are dense, intricate and complex knots of language, and yet there is never a moment when you feel she has lost control. By the end of the second story, I had declared Kathleen Alcott my short-fiction God and vowed to follow her and her characters to the ends of the earth.