Campbell's stories come roaring across rural Michigan with the speed and fury of an unexpected train. Fresh and larger-than-life, each features a profoundly independent, if not feral, female character who posseses extreme physical strength and resilient emotional powers. In "The Fishing Dog," a man tells an 18-year-old woman living alone in a riverside cabin with no modern amenities that it seems as though she's been raised by wolves. In "Gorilla Girl," Campbell's heroine is possessed by an almost inhuman wildness. She eats insects, beats up a classmate, forces sharp objects through her skin, and finally finds a haven in a freak show. Elsewhere, a seventh-grader proudly displays her shapely breasts like trophies, wreaking havoc at home and at school. Lonely women eat, smoke, and sleep too much, struggling to suppress far more outrageous appetites, while their daughters try to protect them even as they plot their escape. Campbell is a poet of survival, lust, and freedom, and the call of her powerful stories resonates long after their pages have been turned.

Donna Seaman - Booklist, November 15, 1999.



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