The Usual Grievances

It is rare when every piece in a collection of short stories takes hold of us—our interest, our fascination, our emotions—and refuses to let go. Such is the case in CK Gauntt’s alarmingly forceful compendium, The Usual Grievances. Beginning with the tragic and haunting From a Child, the Writer’s Hands to the final lines of the closing story (Thou shalt not follow false gods. We are all guilty), we are pulled through every permutation of the human condition at its best, and its worst. Gauntt has created characters who suffer the jagged edge of isolation, loneliness, depression, alcoholism, and abandonment, everything that upends life and makes us question our very existence. And yet buried deep in this pessimism is hope, redemption, and a hint of the wondrous possibilities to be recognized and embraced. This is a collection that must be read.