Eileen Pollack's collection In the Mouth, published last Spring, was awarded the Silver Medal for Best Short Fiction by Foreword Magazine. Congratulations to Ms. Pollack!
"Pollack writes about tragedy and transition with pathos and insight. Her stories acknowledge the everyday qualities of grief while according it gravity. Honest enough not to promise the false reassurance that everything will end happily, Pollack offers resolutions that have the character of a hard-fought, fragile peace with the world: 'a pleasant exhaustion,' or the knowledge that 'I would no more want to open that safe than I would want to dig up my mother’s coffin, pry open the lid, and see if her diamond wedding-ring is still on her finger and my father’s perfect fillings still inside her teeth.'
In the Mouth shows us how the secrets that might sunder a family often become its strongest connections. Whether in the guise of the unopened safe a family is selling in a yard sale, two married strangers forlornly attracted to each other at a resort, or a mother unable to express her fears about lavishing physical attention on her baby, these electric stories explore the nerve endings of human relationships."
-- from the Press Release for In the Mouth
