A Blind Corner

In an era of quick takes and easy generalizations, this collection is a reclaiming of the centrality of the individual in any narrative. Here, human proclivities and fatal blind spots meet the nuances and ironies of the real world to trump the convenient, social-media driven narratives which sort people into neat buckets of insider or outsider; good or bad; with us or against us. Whether at home, in New York or New England, or away, on the kind of vacations the chattering classes like to brag-post about, the road to Macy's hell is always paved with the best of intentions. A woman who tries to do a good deed for an underprivileged child sees it go horribly wrong. A mother known as a "saint" forgets that charity begins at home. A teenaged girl is traumatized not by her categorically traumatic experience but by a minor mistake. And, in the title story, a young American wife who fancies herself an insider in Italy, soon learns just how much of an outsider she really is. In tales where expectations are overturned, often brutally, Macy eschews easy moralization for uncomfortable truths that reveal the complexity of what it means to be human.