Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair

Kelly L. Green is a freelance writer living in Ajax, Ontario.

These stories take readers down a slippery slope of muddy human
relationships, fraught with child abuse, wife battering, hypocrisy, and
cruel fate. It is hard to believe that reading such sad tales could be
an enjoyable experience, but Andrews is such a master of her genre that
it is.

She is at her best when she not only plumbs the dark depths of human
nature but also gives a story an O. Henrylike twist. In “The Eye of
the Beholder,” she describes the hilarious predicament of an Anglican
bishop who is forced to compromise his integrity and judge a beautiful
baby contest to placate a wealthy parishioner. To his horror, he learns
that the trend to name babies after soap-opera stars can have more
deleterious results than even he could have imagined.

Like many other superior short-story writers, Andrews creates
characters whose reality, often dark and bleak, will stay with the
reader indefinitely. Her prose is careful, intelligent, sensitive, and
humorous, and she obviously knows whereof she speaks. She seldom
falters, but occasionally the reader may feel that an ending has been
contrived. As she continues to practice her craft, one suspects that her
endings will reflect her mastery of all the other elements of the short
story. Andrews gives the reader a pearl in almost every oyster.