The Tiger in the Grass

Book excerpt: In her first collection of stories and pieces, Harriet Doerr explores the magical power of memory and brings us a wealth of unforgettable characters: eccentric eighty-two-year-old Great-Aunt Alice, who, empowered by a lucid memory, lived out her final, physically debilitated years with grace; Edie, who arrives in California from England to bring sanity and peace to a house with five half-orphaned children and a despairing widower; Paco, eight years old, and Gloria, eleven, children caught between the longing and pleasures of childhood and the harsh mature realities of their meager circumstances in a Mexican village. These and other characters are captured in the web of life with a startling sensitivity that will touch the reader at every turn. “Strikingly pure and radiant.”—The New York Times Book Review