The Bell at the End of a Rope

ABBY FRUCHT’S NEW STORY COLLECTION, The Bell at the End of a Rope, brings us intimately into the lives of characters who are as bizarre as they are endearing. A woman visits her sister, only to find that the sister, who is slowly unhinging, has made an enormous seafood feast for a former congresswoman she neglected to invite; an eight-year-old girl punches her kindred spirit in the nose just to see what it feels like; a woman who once hid her smoking from her disapproving husband loses interest in cigarettes after his death. Frucht’s deadpan yet playful voice remarks the most fantastical situations constantly occurring amid the ordinary. Her stories ask: What’s normal, anyway? What is life if not unpredictable, unbelievable, and bizarre enough to keep us wanting more?