Ciska's Book Chest

AuthorCourtney Angela Brkic is the author of The First Rule of Swimming (Little, Brown, and Company, 2013), Stillness: and Other Stories (FSG, 2003) and The Stone Fields (FSG, 2004). Her work has also appeared in Zoetrope, The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, Harpers & Queen, the Utne Reader, TriQuarterly Review, The Alaska Review and National Geographic, among others. Brkic has been the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writer’s Award. She lives outside of Washington, DC, with her husband and son, and teaches in the MFA program at George Mason University.ReviewI love books filled with family secrets where one generation slowly unravels those of previous generations. This book is filled with secrets like that but also with something mystical. There is a connection between people in this family that just jumps of the page building an atmosphere around you. It was not difficult to get a taste of the special way living on such a secluded island. Especially Lukes stories and the stories on Magdalena's childhood helped a lot with that. It is easy to connect to these people and see the live trough their eyes.It was also pretty clear which characters you where to like and which ones not by the way they where set up.It is a story though, where not everything is told, only those things that are important for development and setting the right atmosphere. Thus leaving me with various questions after reading. Still I would like to grab a plane and boat and spent some time there