Each of the seven stories in Rebecca Lee's debut collection satisfies. While the reader may crave more of her writing than Bobcat and Other Stories offers, it's not that these tales aren't fleshed out, it's because we want more of them.
There's a sense of intimacy and immediate immersion to Lee's stories, all written in the first person. She includes many reflections on language, which feels appropriate in pieces so carefully crafted. " 'Oh, hey, go ahead.' This is the whole problem with words," the collection's one male narrator frets as he watches the student he pines for in their select group of hopeful architects leave to visit their dogmatic, renowned professor. "There is so little surface area to reveal whom you might be underneath, how expansive and warm, how easygoing, how cool, and so it all comes out a little pathetic and awkward and choked."
Another character suspects her fiancé, "the Romanian liar," is corresponding with a wife in his native land, but she can't interpret the letters. Desire is another theme, most poignantly in the story of the young American who must interview her soulmate's potential marriage partners, in keeping with his Chinese family's tradition.
In the first and last stories, Lee's delightfully optimistic and quirkily flawed protagonists seek marital bliss. In spare accountings, Lee forecasts trouble to come, while terrines are prepared, soup ladled, and guests greeted. With her treatment of the ordinary as comfort, the reader senses all will be well, come what may. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco