Cora Sandel : selected short stories /

The characters in this posthumous collection walk down heather-lined trails where adult conventions are tossed to the wind. (``The middle of the road is ugly and brown, like rice pudding.'') The little girl in ``The Child Who Loved Roads'' invents stories on her summer strolls to dull the pain of growing up. In ``A Mystery,'' Mrs. Arnold takes walks to reclaim her pathetic fantasies. The bitter wife in ``The Child'' ambles down crunchy gravel paths to drown out the sounds of her own despair. Sandel, a Norwegian author with universal appeal, writes about the oppressed, the exiled, and the lonely with compassion, humor and cold anger. Her portraits of children, and their bewilderment at the adult world, are brilliant. December (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved