From: brock@ucsub.Colorado.EDU (Steve Brock)
Subject: Review of A Wild, Cold State by Debra Monroe (fiction/short stories)
Date: 5 Apr 1995 01:36:49 GMT

A WILD, COLD STATE by Debra Monroe.  Simon and Schuster, 1230
Avenue of the Americas, N.Y., NY 10020, (800) 223-2336, (212) 698-
7007 FAX.  272 pp., $21.00 cloth.  0-671-89717-9

                     Reviewed by Steve Brock

     I put Monroe's new book down about a third of the way through
because I got tired of the same story being told by different
characters - a technique that is extremely irritating when not
executed properly.  In a magnanimous mood, however, I decided to
give it another try because the prose was strong.  This time I
stayed with it, and was pleased with the resolution.
     In her second book of short stories, Monroe follows five women
through the 60s and 70s, seeking warmth (and occasional wildness)
in Wisconsin, a state known for its frigid topography and stoic
denizens.  The women slip in and out of each other's lives, and
through each other they come to a better understanding of them-
selves, though their material circumstances may have declined.
     Monroe is at her best when one of her characters is observing
how a potentiality, usually a chance at love, has fallen short of
their expectations.  In the last story, "Plumb and Solid," for
example, Zoe, married to an affluent farmer and pregnant with her
fourth child, stops at her lover's gas station.  Davie, soon to be
married, takes Zoe's face into his hands and says, "One last time." 
They duck into his office.  At first, Zoe feels like a virgin
("Electric shock, a lilt and jolt"), but by the end of the act,
Davie is crying and Zoe feels like she's treading water ("moving
and holding still").
     These are ambitious and believable stories, written in a
sparkling prose that will more than likely carry the reader past
the first third of the book.  If not, as the magic eight-ball says:
"try again later."  Grade: B+.  Also by Monroe: "The Source of
Trouble" (1990), a collection of stories which won the Flannery
O'Connor Award for Short Fiction.