THROWING KNIVES (Ohio State Univ Prize in Short Fiction)

These stories trace the heart's hairline fractures, the small indignities that foreshadow tectonic shifts. A fifteen-year-old girl in the grips of an eating disorder, the new wife of a weapons engineer, a widow who signs up for a figure drawing class - the diverse characters who populate Tinsley's world crave safety and connection only to be faced with "the truth of forever and alone."
Quirky and resilient, they refuse victim-hood, drawing instead on their savvy and sense of humor for creative ways to assert themselves even in extremity. A cancer survivor in a loveless marriage dons snorkel mask and flippers before she slips into the sea. A woman with a history of panic attacks, abducted by a bumbling version of the man of her nightmares, plunges beyond her terror. In the five linked stories of the volume's title, a "navy brat" displaced overseas forges through early adolescence against a background of emotional disruption and neglect.