Comfort Me with Apples

Lori A. Dunn is a ESL teacher, instructional designer, and freelance
writer in New Westminster, B.C.

The nature of the family in its many guises is the principal theme of
this short-story collection, which includes a novella. There are stories
about an affair, two roommates, a single mom and her only daughter, an
unpopular teen with a pregnancy scare, and a group of 20-somethings in a
chosen family. While the stories present realistic situations and touch
on a good deal of truth in doing so, the novella is somewhat less
successful: here a series of barely connected remembrances, moving back
and forth from past to present, is used to convey a grown daughter’s
attempts to analyze the nature of her relationship with her mother.

O’Leary’s clear writing and nicely captures her character’s inner
thoughts and personalities. Unfortunately, the stories are not
memorable, perhaps because there is little to distinguish the
experiences of the characters from those of the average person.