title: Mourning Doves: Stories
author:  Judy Troy 
description: Despite the examples of trailer park minimalism crowding the recent fictional landscape, Troy's first collection of stories (all originally published in the New Yorker ) is a welcome addition to the field. Set in mobile homes, Kmarts and blue-collar bars in small towns throughout the heartland, these brief, stunning pieces demonstrate an emotional depth often lacking in similar fiction. Troy's memorable characters refuse to allow their difficult circumstances to diminish their capacity to love and hope. Survivors of divorce and the deaths of loved ones, they create makeshift families out of the rubble of their dreams and struggle to carry on with the business of life. The title story shows a young waitress reaching out to the grief-stricken father of her dead boyfriend and standing by her mother through a string of relationships with polyester cowboys. In "Fidelity," a divorced man witnesses his son's kindness to his own dying father and regrets having betrayed his wife. "Looking for Love" chronicles a lonely man's attempt to care for his wife's unhappy daughter, herself a mother at 15. The combined effect of these starkly realistic tales is richly satisfying. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  The May afternoon seemed so quiet, as if adding its own silent psalm. A thrush
  warbled from high in a red-budding maple. The three of us held hands, dirt and
  all. Their fingers felt gritty in mine. Frail strength.
  
  
  Daisy, I was facing up to, might die next. But this weren’t no proper moment
  to tell my mother and her older sister.
  
  
  As we stood by the massive mound of earth, Mama, in a quiet voice, spoke a few
  Shaker words about how farmers and animals live together, and die together on
  a shared plot. She recited it all like a hymn that was missing its music.
  
  
  “The resting of death,” Mama said, “becomes a part of the land, as clouds are
  a part of the sky.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # _Also by Robert Newton Peck_ :
  
  
  _A Day No Pigs Would Die_
  
  
  _Soup_
  
  
  _Soup and Me_
  
  
  _Soup for President_
  
  
  _Soup’s Drum_
  
  
  _Soup on Wheels_
  
  
  _Soup in the Saddle_
  
  
  _Soup’s Goat_
  
  
  _Soup on Ice_
  
  
  _Soup Ahoy_
  
  
  _Soup 1776_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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