Creatures of Habit

<DIV> Jill McCorkle's new collection of twelve short stories is peopled with characters brilliantly like us-flawed clueless endearing. These stories are also animaled with all manner of mammal bird fish reptile-also flawed and endearing. She asks what don't humans share with the so-called lesser species? Looking for the answer she takes us back to her fictional home town of Fulton North Carolina to meet a broad range of characters facing up to the double-edged sword life offers hominids. The insight with which McCorkle tells their stories crackles with wit but also with a deeper-and more forgiving-wisdom than ever before. In Billy Goats Fulton's herd of seventh graders cruises the summer nights peeking into parked cars maddening the town madman. In Monkeys a widow holds her husband's beloved spider monkey close along with his deepest secrets. In Dogs a single mother who works for a veterinarian compares him-unfavorably-with his patients. In Snakes a seasoned wife sees what might have been a snake in the grass and decides to step over it. And in the exquisite final story Fish a grieving daughter remembers her father's empathy for the ugliest of all fishes. The success behind Jill McCorkle's short stories-and her novels-is as one reviewer noted her skill as an archaeologist of the absurd an expert at excavating and examining the comedy of daily life (Richmond Times-Dispatch). Yes and also the tragedy. </DIV>