"Starting Over: Stories," by Elizabeth Spencer

Elizabeth Spencer, at the age of 92, has just -- a decade after the last book she published -- published a new collection of short stories, "Starting Over" (Liveright/Norton, 2014). I am in awe of this great Southern writer, and her producing these wonderful stories at this stage in her life is impressive and inspiring. Her stories are as good as ever, both down-to-earth and haunting. She writes of marriages, love affairs, small towns, mysteries, secrets, and misunderstandings. But most of all she writes about the tangled relationships within families. Spencer understands both the frailties and the resilience of her characters. Her stories are set in the South, and are evocative of that geography and ethos, but they resonate far beyond as well.