Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Little Brown & Company
Release Date: March, 2004
ISBN: 0316734993
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Hardcover
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Genre: Fiction
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Janine Peterson
Reviewer Notes: Some profanity and sex
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Fidelity: Stories
By Michael Redhill


     Love and trust are not enough. Love can hurt, and trust can be weak. That's the message of this powerful, beautiful collection of short stories, Fidelity: Stories by Michael Redhill.

     One story focuses on a young mother who finds herself raising a clearly gifted son. Her partner, a man whom she never married, is undaunted by the boy, but the mother can't stop trying to find some failing in her son. She tells herself she is seeking failure in her son for his sake, and she thinks she succeeds. But is that really success? Does love seek to correct failure, or should it exist unconditionally?

      Another story begins with the delivery of a package for a couple's teenage daughter. The mother opens it to find a videotape of the daughter having sex with two boys and apparently enjoying it. The father, furious, wants to press charges. However, the girl is over the age of consent, and the boys are not. Because of this, their daughter would be identified in the papers. Additionally, she would have to give consent for any criminal suit and cooperate with authorities. What is the best thing for this family to do?

     Redhill presents story after story of difficult choices, human failings, and the aching beauty of human emotion. Some stories are more difficult to read than others, but all depict some facet of love and trust. All are intense, and some are sad, even overwhelming. I could never read more than one in a sitting. The occasional curse words are never gratuitous, the sex is only as graphic as the plot dictates, and it is never intended to be sensational.

     Love and trust are good things, as the book seems to acknowledge. But what really matters are the decisions made under the influence of love or trust.