Wow! This story truly moved me. The detailed writing, the vivid metaphors...Ms. Groff’s talents as a writer are amazing. I will definitely be buying this story collection!

The female narrator walks through her Florida neighborhood at night while her husband is putting their kids to bed. As she speed-walks, she comments on what she sees, the people’s lives she glimpses through their windows, and the stresses of her own life. While originally dingy and dangerous, her neighborhood has been revitalized, yet she still sees the hurt, pain, and, “everydayness” that lurk in the shadows. A fat man running on his treadmill and, over time, losing weight. A house of nuns dwindling as the old ladies die off. A lady (possibly sick) walking her great dane. Even the narrator’s husband might be having an affair. The mundane, earthly things the narrator witnesses in the glimpses of rooms, people, and yards she sees as she walks are LIFE. While small and quick, they are the little, everyday things that compose a human life. The setting, the characters, the situations, the emotions...all that the narrator sees are the plot points of the human story and they’re fascinating...all the more intriguing when relayed by Groff’s deft skills.

I could go on and on about how good this slice-of-nightlife tale is, but I’ll let Groff do it with this amazing sample: “Window after window nears, freezes with its blue fog of television light or its couple hunched over a supper of pizza, holds as I pass, then slides into the forgotten. I think of the way water gathers as it slips down an icicle’s length, pauses to build its glossy drop, becomes too fat to hang on, plummets down.”

Amazing, right? Definitely seek this one out and read it. Highly (highly) recommend.