<p>In the powerful poems of her fifth collection, Heather Ross Miller reveals the traps in daily life, especially those set for the innocent and the cautious - poisoned tap water, a date turned to rape, oppressive domesticity. One poem deals with the brutality of butterfly collecting and ends with a woman caught in a net, unable to breathe. In another, man-eating plants catch and devour those who pass too close. Some of the victims in Friends and Assassins contemplate the pleasures of revenge, some go beyond contemplation, but all of them gain strength by confronting the truth.<br>With deceptively simple language and moments of wry humor, Miller sketches the dimensions of danger around us all.</p>

Friends and Assassins: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Miller, Heather Ross

Poetry

Univ of Missouri Pr

Situated in small-town North Carolina, Miller's tales, cautionary in tone, usually depict blue-collar family life and yet almost resemble old fairy tales. Her stories center around southern families and the dynamics, both loving and hostile, that move families together, separate them, threaten them, and then finally protect them. The characters in these stories--children, men and women, often husbands and wives--recognize these forces and act to salvage those they love in efforts that are often as trivial as they are heroic.Often told from the point of view of an angry or disillusioned child, the stories of this superb collection are comic as well as tragic; others are angry and even critical. In the title story, Quint, a young boy suffering from the effects of a broken home, finds solace in Sparkle Plenty, the baby doll with deep double dimples, big eyes, and long white-blond hair who lives in the Dick Tracy comic strip and beckons Quint to live forever with her in the funny papers. In "My Spanish Skirt," Laramie envies her friend's skirt because of its magical power to charge her imagination--her only escape from the deadly combat taking place between her parents. But Laramie soon discovers that the skirt only causes more confusion and sorrow and anger.All of the stories manifest a genuine love for southern families and the people who are caught, confused, and eventually encouraged and sustained within them. As Thomas Hardy once observed, "Our personal griefs and triumphs are often absurd to other people." But rather than making fun of her characters, Heather Ross Miller is sympathizing as deeply as she can imagine: "These things are only manageable with a bit of humor, even with a caustic flavor. So, as in the funny papers, things can work out, with humor, with plain sense, and, if we are lucky, a bit of magic."

In the Funny Papers: Stories (Volume 1)

United States

University of Missouri

Champeen: A Novel

Humor & Satire

Southern Methodist Univ Pr

Suddenly, between people, there is a moment when their relationship shifts - dramatically or imperceptibly. It matters not which; Heather Ross Miller conveys with delicacy and artistry the texture of unfathomed feelings that people have for one another and why they change. "The situation of children interests me," says Miller. "I do not always sympathize with them, but I think their positions in life (down under and always looking up) give them excellent views on adults who control life." Miller also illuminates the psychological bonds that hold adults together - wife to husband, brother to sister, and even an old woman to her furnace that "tells her things." Characters range from war refugees, emigrated to America, to frontier settlers, but always they come alive through the triumph of Miller's prose. Her reputation as a master of words is enhanced by this collection of eleven short stories.

A Spiritual Divorce and Other Stories

John F. Blair

Gypsy with Baby

Louisiana Literature Press

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