Survival Rates (Hardcover)

A baby's funeral urn has been lost. A dog has bitten off a girl's nose. The abandoned butterflies have been set free. The doctor has diagnosed a fatal illness. Mary Clyde's stories explore not so much what has happened already but what happens next. Sometimes the most difficult part of life's misfortunes is trying to find a way to go on. Characters ask, How does it matter? What does it mean to survive? These questions are explored by men, women, teenagers, and children in an environment that is hostile not only to the heart but also to the body. Illness bristles through the book, magnifying emotional undercurrents. In "Howard Johnson's House, " a plastic surgeon tries to summon up unfelt love for his mother when confronted with her diagnosis of leukemia. Two teenage girls survive surgery and the prospect of never eating popcorn again in "Krista Had a Treble Clef Rose." A diagnosis of cancer tears a marriage apart and then pulls it back together again in the title story, "Survival Rates."

The desert Southwest is a constant presence in these stories, populated with frightening javelinas, black widows, coyotes that eat cats, boulders that can crush cars. The characters are pioneers, some of whom share the author's Mormon heritage. They find that despite modern times, western landscapes are often harsh, always indifferent, and far more patient than the people who tenuously inhabit them.