The dozen meticulously crafted short stories in National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender's The Words of Dr. L and Other Stories speculate about the near future, reflect on the recent past, and imagine an alternative present.
Bender (Refund) dives deeply into family dynamics and extends her exploration outward to the community. Readers may be tempted to connect the title story with the present-day challenges of ending a pregnancy, except for the narrator's mission to connect with Dr. L and learn the top-secret words--rather than a medical solution--that will keep her child-free. Bender balances this futuristic element with the protagonist's memories of her relationship with her own mother, and with the woman who was once her best friend, now preoccupied with motherhood. "The Hypnotist" mines the dynamics of a father-daughter relationship, and how an aging father makes use of pandemic boundaries to conceal from his daughter his own fragility.
Despite a premonition of disaster in many of Bender's riveting selections, an atmosphere of gentleness envelops her characters. They yearn for connection. In "The Shame Exchange," the government issues a mandate in which citizens "who held too much shame" would hand off their shame to "a government official who had none." The citizens could then acknowledge that these officials, now burdened with shame, "needed to be treated with a bit of tenderness."
In Bender's investigation of isolation and community, parents and children, friends and seeming enemies, these 12 stories allow readers a wide lens through which to both contemplate world events and what may lay ahead--and to consider the vital role of compassion when weighing one's choices. --Jennifer M. Brown