Thoreau's Laundry

The twelve stories in Ann Harleman's second fiction collection span a century (from 1911 to the present) and range over two continents. Her characters confront love and loss - heartbreak, adultery, divorce, chronic degenerative illness, disability, and death - within a context of political and social upheaval. Their personal battles are intensified by the trials of their times: the onset of World War I, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain, the Cold War, the urban warfare in America's inner cities, 9/11. Despite their often dire circumstances, Harleman's characters manage to find moments of light and grace.