The Office of Historical Corrections

Rena thought the point of the game was to identify the proverb that was the worst of all possible proverbs, and make a case for its failure. She'd run through a number of contenders before deciding on In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. The land of the blind would be built for the blind; there would be no expectation among its citizens that the world should be other than what it was. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man would adjust, or otherwise be deemed a lunatic or a heretic. The one-eyed man would spend his life learning to translate what experience was his alone, or else he would learn to shut up about it.

Ghosts are real.

When we think of them we tend to imagine them as ethereal, floaty wispy and irrelevant but no, oh no: they're ponderous, massive, and we all carry them with us, too often without even knowing they're there.

Evans sees them... but she's too much of an artist to show them to us. Instead, like astronomers inferring planets from their gravitational tug, she paints the wobble, the tug that these ghosts impose on their People. Sometimes the ghost is a seemingly minor decision we make on impulse, whose consequences we're left carrying; sometimes it's a remnant of our upbringing, an inheritance of our parents' ghosts; and there's also the crushing weight of centuries of racist oppression. Evans focuses on her subjects with exquisite precision: every sentence, every word matters. This is a book you savor, where you feel rewarded for taking your time. She has an uncanny eye for detail and expression: I felt entirely transported into each narrative; a part of it. I felt the shame of judging others without being able to see their inner turmoils, less so their ghosts. Felt the conflicting influences of multiple planets, those with privilege and those lacking, orbiting and affecting each other without ever meeting. I felt the ghosts without ever seeing them, drawn in negative - dare I say white - space.

Wish I could give this six stars.

Probably more of a 3.5 but I am rounding up.

This is a very well written collection of stories which felt very engrossing and full of depth, but ultimately left me feeling dissatisfied because many of them didn't give me the kind of closure I expected. I understand they are short stories but most of them felt like beginnings, and I would enjoy more if they were all longer. However, it's still an interesting anthology and I would also recommend the audiobook for its wonderful cast of narrators.