| Grau's first book in eight years, her third collection of stories, is a strong group of tales about women at various crises in their lives. The praise given her first collection, The Black Prince (1955), was deserved, though too hyperbolic; her second, The Wind Shifting West (1973), was a much less consistent effort. Less symbolic than the stories in the first collection and less topical than the second, the stories in Nine Women show the consequences of isolation, of being at the end of a particular stage in life. ``Letting Go,'' for example, shows how a woman is caught up in her parents' patterns of thinking so that she will never know true freedom. ``Ending'' tells of a woman's emotional malaise after her daughter's marriage. ``Widow's Walk'' and ``Summer Shore'' offer contrasting circumstances in older women's lives at the end of summer, both to good effect. ``The Beginning,'' which has some of the fairy-tale elements found in The Black Prince, tells how a black schoolgirl turns into a ``princess'' as she helps model her mother's exotic fashions. ``Home'' is a poignant tale about two lesbians' changing relationship. Though Grau is not technically adventurous nor a deep analyst of character, her power, honesty, and ability to present women, mostly middle-aged, are superb. Grau is in top form in this collection; no longer can she be considered merely one more ``Southern Gothic'' prose stylist. For graduate and undergraduate libraries.-P. Schlueter, Allentown College of St. Francis DeSales |
