Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories

The title story alone justifies this collection: Miss Libby Mink is a woman whose routine is her fortress. A solitary churchgoer in a small American town during wartime, she has mastered the art of invisibility. When her minister asks parishioners to invite soldiers to dinner, Miss Mink intends to do absolutely nothing. Then a young soldier named Alexis Bowinski sits beside her, and in a panic, she blurts out an invitation she cannot retract. What follows is a quietly devastating comedy of manners, as Miss Mink's carefully constructed world collides with unexpected humanity. Rice writes with sharp observation and genuine tenderness, capturing the particular loneliness of those who have chosen solitude, and the terrifying, rewarding possibility of letting someone in. The other stories in the collection follow similarly eccentric characters navigating a world shifting beneath their feet.