Summary:

This is the story of Vicky, a metaphorical figure, who was both outsider and larger-than-life, and who was first on her junior high school softball team to start her period. She does so in the midst of a game, with boys and girls looking on, bases loaded, Vicky herself at bat. When she lifts her left leg during a swing, a large patch, a "sea of red" is visible in her crotch. Made aware of what has happened by the urgent cries of some of her girlfriends, Vicky looks down, shrugs, and continues her run around the bases: a home run. Vicky, big as an earthquake, comes to symbolize womanhood for these girls, moving them to some slightly higher plateau of understanding about being women, and being together.

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Summary:

This story presents a denial of breast cancer so deep that it may cost a woman her life. Arranged by discrete sections labeled "photographs," the story is a chronology of Grace from age five to her present middle age. The story ends after her surgery, and readers are left with the insight that for Grace--and many other women--breasts were more than sexual appendages that warranted admiration from others, visual affirmation of her womanness, or sexual enticements. They were her body, her self, and removal of her breast was not simply removal of a peripheral part.

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Summary:

This story takes place on a drive home to the country from a medical appointment in town. Jinny has cancer and is on chemotherapy; she feels unwell and wears an uncomfortable hat because she has lost her hair. Her visit to the doctor ends with disconcerting news, but her husband, Neal, seems uninterested. In a supposed effort to be cheerful, he plays up to Helen, the young woman whom they are taking home to help while Jinny is ill. She senses that Neal will have a life and loves beyond her existence.

In the van, Neal becomes obsessed with teasing Helen about a forgotten pair of shoes; over her objections, he insists on picking them up from friends. Neither the girl nor Jinny are eager to visit this place, which turns out to be a bleak trailer-home surrounded by unfriendly dogs and occupied by a garrulous, obese couple that invite them to visit. Jinny just wants to go home and stays in the van, but Neal ignores her wishes and goes inside for a beer, which extends into a meal.

The teenage son, Ricky, returns to find Jinny waiting. More sympathetic than anyone else has been that day, he offers to drive her home. She surprises herself by leaving with Ricky at the wheel of Neal's van and by not caring what the others might think. He chooses a back-road that passes over a floating bridge. They stop. The dusk turns to dark and the stars emerge over dark water; exquisite beauty in a simple spot.

Jinny suddenly realizes that she has been without her hat all the while. The lad then kisses the much older woman. He admits it is the first time he has kissed a married woman; she tells him it will not likely be the last, and, soberly, he agrees. The tiny adventure of betrayal--an innocent form of sexual retaliation against her husband--brings a sense of hilarity, self-worth, and well being "for the time given."

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Summary:

George, a strong introverted African-American man and Guilio, a delicate and flighty Italian man, have been lovers for many decades. Guilio's deteriorating heart condition strains their relationship. Guilio is haunted by childhood death fantasies and George becomes frustrated trying to help him to deal with his illness and his fears. In the end, however, George is comforted by Guilio, who has sensed his pain and grief over being the surviving partner.

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Summary:

The narrator is an aging, male gynecologist who works in a small North Carolina town. The National Health Service sends a young doctor, Rachel, to work in the clinic. From Boston, she is unused to the town's racial politics. She learns slowly to understand the motivations and concerns of her patients. As she campaigns for condom distribution, she ends up insulting the white men who run the town by calling them racists.

The narrator protests that they have power in the town only because no blacks ever run for office and that their policies are meant to distribute wealth evenly. He encourages Rachel to be more gentle and womanly. She will get her way more easily if she smiles. But Rachel eventually turns her back on the narrator, too, when in order to get a violent black man out of the clinic's lobby he calls the man "boy" and threatens to call the police. Rachel moves in with a black man. The town has revenge when a hit and run driver kills her lover and Rachel is hounded out of town.

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Summary:

Harry Pope is afraid to move even a muscle. While lying in bed and reading a book, he notices a krait--Bungarus caeruleus, a deadly Asian snake--slithering on top of his pajamas. When his companion, Timber, arrives at the bungalow around midnight, Harry is still petrified with fright. Convinced the snake is asleep on his stomach beneath the bed sheet, Harry has been lying motionless for hours.

Timber telephones Dr. Ganderbai for help and despite the late hour, the Indian physician promptly makes a house call. He administers an injection of anti-venom just in case the snake bites Harry. Next, Dr. Ganderbai carefully infuses chloroform underneath the bed sheet in an attempt to anesthetize the krait. Timber and the doctor then remove the sheet but no snake is found. Dr. Ganderbai questions the validity of Harry's account and wonders if the man was merely dreaming. Harry becomes enraged and spews insults including racial slurs. The doctor remains composed and exits quietly, remarking only that Harry could use a vacation.

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Summary:

Monsieur Daron, an eighty-six-year-old-man, comes to live at the new spa in Rondelis. He believes himself to be in excellent health, as a result of "careful living." He has always had "an obsessive fear of death," and he avoids all pleasure because it may be dangerous.

In order to measure and monitor his own condition, M. Daron arranges for the doctor in charge of the springs to visit him once a week with information on the health of everyone else in the surrounding area who is over the age of eighty. When he hears that someone has died, he quickly identifies a cause that might have been avoided; the man who died of pleurisy should not have gone out in the cold, and the one who died of dysentery must have eaten the wrong food.

Eventually, though, one old man dies for no apparent reason. The doctor can report no lesion, no disease: "He died because he died, that's all." M. Daron is horrified and asks the man's age. Eighty-nine. He laughs in relief, saying, "whatever it was, it wasn't old age . . . ."

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Summary:

When an elderly woman dies, her husband telegraphs their six sons to come home. They are successful men between the ages of 20 and 40 who reside in different regions of Russia. The third son, a physicist, brings his 6-year-old daughter along. First, the brothers weep--slowly and silently. They experience a combination of apprehension and loneliness. Next, the siblings participate in a brief religious ceremony. As they surround their mother's coffin listening to the priest, the six men are uncomfortable and perhaps even ashamed. Finally, the brothers act cheerful--singing, telling stories, and roughhousing while preparing to go to sleep.

The third brother calms the others and then exits the bedroom. He stands over his mother's casket and passes out. His head hits the floor. His five brothers revive him and console him. Now all six men are able to fully mourn their deceased mother. They easily recall their childhood. The six brothers carry their mother's coffin and are followed by the father and granddaughter in the funeral procession. The old man is content that one day these same six sons will properly bury him too.

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Summary:

This tale covers several decades in the life of the protagonist, Emily Grierson. In a typically Faulknerian style, the reader is led back and forth over time by an unidentified narrator, known only as we. The viewpoint is that of generations of observers in Miss Emily's southern town who have watched and speculated about her since she was a young woman living under the thumb of a father characterized as controlling.

After father's death, Emily lives in the aging family mansion with a manservant as cook, gardener, and general handyman. A few years pass and a handsome laborer from the North arrives as part of a project crew. Emily and this man are seen to be keeping company. One day Emily appears in the apothecary and buys arsenic. The man in question is not seen again by the townspeople.

Thirty years pass and Emily does not leave her home; she ages, grows fat with long, iron-gray hair, and becomes increasingly reclusive, and eventually dies. The now elderly houseman admits the city fathers to the home and disappears, never to be seen again. As the townspeople go through the house they discover a locked door, which when broken down leads into a dusty, musty and faded room. In the bed lie the skeletal remains of a man whose clothes and toiletries (recognized by those who recall Emily purchasing them and having them inscribed with the laborer's initials) occupy the room. On the indented pillow next to the remains is a single, long, iron-gray hair.

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Summary:

Filomena is the wife of the miller, Malaquias. She is miserable with labor pains and has been bedridden for three days. Her childbirth is failing to progress, and death seems likely for both mother and baby. A tiny hand protrudes from Filomena's vagina signifying the stalled process of birth and the urgent need for medical assistance. The midwife in this Portuguese village is not capable of performing such a difficult delivery. The local doctor is ill. He advises Malaquias to fetch a physician from another town but the cost is too great.

The Catholic priest, Father Gusmao, makes a nocturnal procession carrying the Holy Eucharist to the miller's home. He intends to administer Communion and Last Rights to Filomena. The priest examines her and discovers that Filomena's baby is in the breech position. He has little choice but to attempt delivering the baby by himself. Although Father Gusmao read a medical manual long ago, it is primarily intuition that steers his daring act. First a foot, then the body, and finally the head of a baby boy emerge from the birth canal. Mother and child survive. All the while, the Holy Eucharist in a pyx sits on top of a chest of clothes near Filomena's bed witnessing (or perhaps guiding) the entire sequence of events.

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