Family and Other Ailments

<p>Blood ties. The family we've been given the friends we make the loves we keep and those we lost. The twenty-six stories in Family and Other Ailments teeter on the brink hover at the periphery or even the possibility of crime. Under a soft light and at an angle they're all love stories.</p><p> </p><p>The collection opens with Spy Head a tale of friendship after a crushing trauma. In Texas Two-Step brotherhood leads to a wicked double-cross. Razorbills shows a young woman seeking freedom from the prison-like caring of her sibling. Black and Tan slips into domestic horror as does Mutti with a hint of the fantastic. Hour of the Bat and Bag Limit are deep woods Texas noir while A Head for Numbers and No Recoil go west to the stark unforgiving beauty of the desert.</p><p> </p><p>M.E. Proctor draws characters with a tender touch. She catches them at an inflexion point in their lives a moment of choice. We feel what they feel see what they see and their voices linger for a long time in our memory.</p>