Sarah Carlisle’s River and Other Stories

In a voice of stark reality and sincere intrigue, Cynthia Lang builds upon a personal legacy left to her in nine spectacular journeys. A legacy may be handed on as a fortune or formidable debt, baseball cards, antique autos, or vermeil coffee spoons. In her collection of short stories it becomes apparent: a legacy is not always so tangible. Devoid of weight, of volume, some [legacies] take up no room at all. On a journey, for instance, nothing may change hands but tickets. On the other hand… Traveling through the lives of intriguing and oftentimes enlightening characters, Lang spins a wonderfully interconnected world for the reader to consider: nine characters, each inheriting a legacy and collectively handing one on to the reader, composed of remnants from past lives, a natural history that has the power to reveal current truths and predict future realities. Having known what such adversity is, I can appreciate the distress you are in, begins Sarah Carlisle’s own legacy, written in the 1800s–what will be yours?