After the Wink and Other Stories

In this collection of 36 short stories and essays (and two poems ), Carolyn Steele Agosta writes about relationships – man/woman, mother/daughter, friend/enemy, grandparent/grandchild, stranger to stranger. Indeed, Ms. Agosta’s stories are all about relationships and the twisting, turning paths they take. If she ever wrote a story about ax-murderers, they’d be a family of ax-murderers, comparing brands of axes and arguing over who Mother liked best. In After the Wink, a woman who feels she has lost sight of herself contemplates starting an affair with a man who sees her for – not who she is – but who she thinks she wants to be. Might like to be. Isn’t sure she wants to be. Well, you get it. In Coming to My Senses, Diane regains her sense of smell only to realize that too many of her other senses have also been clamped down into a narrow existence. The Last Time Dad Got Out of Jail looks at father/daughter relationships and the harsh injustices of justice. Two stories, A Stranger in a Lonely Place and Rest Area, I-40, consider the difficulties of a relationship with God. The author of two novels, Every Little Step She Takes and The Pleasure of Your Company, Carolyn Steele Agosta celebrates the importance of family and endorses the idea that, be it ever so insanity-inducing, there’s no place like Home.