Vanishing and Other Stories »

Deborah Willis's work has appeared in the Bridport Prize Anthology, Event, and Grain, and she was a winner of PRISM International's annual fiction prize. Short-listed for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, Vanishing and Other Stories is her first book of fiction.

A French teacher who collects fiancÉs; a fortune-teller who fails to predict the heartbreak of her own daughter; an aging cowboy seduced by a city girl . . . these are some of the unforgettable people who live in these pages.

In Vanishing and Other Stories, secrets are both kept and unearthed, and lives are shaped by missing lovers, parents, and children. With wisdom and dexterity, moments of dark humor, and a remark- able economy of words, Deborah Willis captures an incredible array of characters that linger in the imagination and prove that nothing is ever truly forgotten.

Publishers Weekly

The characters in these tidy stories navigate turbulent relationships with family members and romantic partners, many of whom vanish, as in the title story, about a daughter's struggles to reconcile her father's sudden desertion of their family. In "The Weather," a teenage girl's new friend betrays her. "And if there was one thing I knew," the narrator says, "it was that this wouldn't get easier. It would ache for years." This lesson holds true for most of these stories, particularly in "Remember, Relive," the second-person narrative of a young woman grappling with a traumatic past as her mother sinks into an Alzheimer's haze. Other stories have decidedly narrow focuses, as with "The Separation," about an 11-year-old's relationship with her aloof older sister, or "Escape," about a young widower's fledgling gambling addiction. Though the stories share themes and narrative tone, each stands firmly on its own, with Willis in full control as the characters face down their losses. (Sept.)