Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived is an absolutely kick-ass beautiful collection of stories by Lily Tuck.
You read these stories set all over the world and even though you may not have visited the locales, you feel as though you have been there because the sense of alienation and exasperation the characters feel is so genuine, so real. They are all so good that it is hard for me to pick out a favorite. If pressed, though, I would have to say the title story, “Limbo,” sticks with me–that and its narrator who reflects back on her life in Peru as a child:
What I remember about Peru is: flying in a plane over the Andes and fainting; stealing a statue of the baby Jesus; and threatening to eat a dog turd.
What everyone else remembers about Peru is why we went there in the first place.
Here we have the crux of this collection: memory and how based on our circumstance we find the importance of the situation. And what we are left with are many places we have lived, but none that we call home.
myfanwy collins 