Quickening

From the opening story in Liza Wieland's third story collection, in which a literary translator reflects on her first marriage, to the last, a poetic evocation of a daughter's love for her mother, lyrical yet realistic portraits of women unfold. Caught in revealing and cathartic moments, her characters, both historical and invented, find themselves at emotional crossroads: a young girl encounters the elderly Ezra Pound in Venice; Marie Curie's daughter Eve attends the funeral of her mother's lover in Paris; a woman survives the 1944 Nazi massacre in Oradour, France; a nun in New York City catches a baby dropped out a window; a U.S. college applicant performs sign language at poetry readings.