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Book Reviewed by:A debut collection of short stories which sympathetically explores some of the toughest dilemmas we face in our struggle though life.
You Should Pity Us Instead explores some of our toughest dilemmas: the cost of Middle East strife at its most intimate level, the likelihood of God considered in day-to-day terms, the moral stakes of family obligations, and the inescapable fact of mortality. Amy Gustine exhibits an extraordinary generosity toward her characters, instilling them with a thriving, vivid presence.
Ultimately, as a short story writer, Gustine is on the right path. Some of her stories work beautifully, with her characters more lively because of her insistence that we think beyond our immediate feelings. Some don’t work all too well. But it’s clear in her efforts that the short story form has interested her for a long time, that she has a vast emotional landscape to explore here, and that her fertile imagination makes the mundane in daily life crackle...continued
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(Reviewed by Rory L. Aronsky).
Before Ellis Island became the "Welcome to America" sign for about 12 million immigrants from 1892 to 1954, Castle Garden on the waterfront at the tip of Manhattan was the first official immigration hub. From 1855 to 1890 it took in over 8 million immigrants mostly from Northern Europe.
However, worsening conditions in Europe ensured a quickly growing number of immigrants, and Castle Garden could not handle those crowds. So the federal government stepped in and set about building an immigration station that they would operate. They chose Ellis Island for its location and doubled its size (from three to six acres) by adding landfill. During that time the Barge Office at the Battery processed immigrants.
On January 1, 1892, the Ellis ...
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Ben Stroud
Amy Gustine's stories cross impossible borders both physical and moral: a mother looking for her kidnapped son sneaks into Gaza, an Ellis Island inspector mourning his lost love plays God at the boundary between old world and new. Brave, essential, thrilling, each story in You Should Pity Us Instead takes us to those places we've never dared visit before.
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