In each of the stories in Robert Oldshue鈥檚 debut collection, the characters want to be decent but find that hard to define.
In the first story, an elderly couple is told that delivery of their Thanksgiving dinner has been canceled due to an impending blizzard. Unwilling to have guests but nothing to serve them, they make a run to the grocery, hoping to get there and back before the snow, but crash their car into the last of their neighbors. In 鈥淭he Receiving Line,鈥 a male prostitute tricks a closeted suburban schoolteacher only to learn that the trick is on him. In 鈥淭he Woman on the Road,鈥 a twelve-year-old girl negotiates the competing demands of her faith and her family as she is bat mitzvahed in the feminist ferment of the 1980s. The lessons she learns are the lessons learned by a ten-year-old boy in 鈥淔ergus B. Fergus,鈥 after which, in 鈥淪ummer Friend,鈥 two women and one man renegotiate their sixty-year intimacy when sadly, but inevitably, one of them gets ill. 鈥淭he Home of the Holy Assumption鈥 offers a benediction. A quadriplegic goes missing at a nursing home. Was she assumed? In the process of finding out, all are reminded that caring for others, however imperfectly鈥攅ven laughably鈥攊s the only shot at assumption we have.
鈥淥ldshue鈥檚 debut collection, winner of the 海角乱伦社区Short Fiction Award, finds consistent success in its depictions of intimate relationships. Oldshue鈥檚 sturdy prose and potent, understated endings will satisfy fans of the classic short story.鈥濃攕tarred review, Publishers Weekly
鈥淥ldshue writes a loose, relaxed prose, that of an unhurried natural storyteller with a wry affection for many of his characters and a wide range of human interest.鈥濃攕tarred review, Kirkus Reviews
鈥淩obert Oldshue鈥檚 debut collection is deceptive. While one could say these stories are about things as simple as driving in bad weather, seeing the next client, and visiting an old friend in the hospital, each of them is a world concentrated and distilled, filled with compassion, insight, and surprise.鈥濃擯eter Turchi, author, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer
鈥淭hese superb stories are written with a sharp wit, big heart, and profound wisdom. Oldshue鈥檚 genius lies in his ability to bring remarkable emotional complexity to the lives of ordinary characters whom we recognize as ourselves. A brilliant debut.鈥濃擧elen Fremont, author, After Long Silence: A Memoir
Robert Oldshue writes stories that are as rich and self-complicating as novels. Set mostly in Boston, November Storm explores that city鈥攍ike Stuart Dybek鈥檚 Chicago or Edward P. Jones鈥檚 DC鈥攖hrough the layers of its characters鈥 memories. Here a twenty-page story seems deeper鈥攎ore densely sedimented with consciousness and retrospection鈥攖han most two-hundred-page books. This is a sensitive and accomplished collection.鈥濃擝ennett Sims, judge, 2016 海角乱伦社区Short Fiction Award
鈥淎 dazzling collection of stories, each with the depth and complexity of a novel. Utterly compelling, I read this book almost in one sitting. Robert Oldshue is an exciting and brilliant new literary voice. Perhaps the Great American Novel is now to be found in a collection of extraordinary short stories.鈥濃擱osamund Lupton, author, Sister
鈥淏ob Oldshue has populated his emotionally intricate and very wise stories with lovable, broken people haunted by their actions or indeed by their failures to act. In sentences that tumble and spiral with masterful invisible complexity, November Storm delivers youngsters searching for themselves, oldsters searching for the past, and the middle-aged searching for redemption.鈥濃擲hannon Cain, author, The Necessity of Certain Behaviors
