SOURCE: A review of Survival Stories, in Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 1997, p. 857.

[Below, the critic offers a positive review of Survival Stories, edited by Kathryn Rhett.]

Twenty fine essays, some never before published, mark episodes of life-changing loss or illness and the redemptive movement toward reconciliation.

Developed from Rhett's course in crisis memoir—or survival stories—at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, the anthology features works that encompass the distinctive elements of the form: the "inclusion of present and past, narrative and digression," and an "urgency" that the work be written, which reveals itself in a sense of discovery for both writer and reader. The contributors include both well known writers, such as Lucy Grealy, Natalie Kusz, and William Styron, and newer voices, including Patton Hollow and Laura Philpot Benedict. Subjects span family deaths, abuse, illness, divorce, infidelity, physical disfigurement—all the sadder stuff of life. The events themselves...