…Gwen believed it was stories that were eternal, not the body or the soul. from North of Ordinary by John Rolfe Gardiner

As I read each story in North of Ordinary, I liked each one best.

They feel real. Consider Their Grandfather’s Clock in which a girl’s Life Class inspires her to ask her mother, “Mom, what do you say when you want Dad to put seeds in you?” I was blindsided by a similar question from my first grade son one morning as I pulled into the church parking lot, late for worship. “Oh, the sweet innocence of a daughter whose Life Class had jumped so far ahead of a mother’s consel,” Gardiner writes.

They are funny. Consider the opening line of the first story: “You’re as likely to be hit twice by lightning as see a wood chipper pull a man into its may.” You laugh, and then are ashamed, considering the dark event implied.

They are surprising. In Freak Corner, a deaf teenaged girl and a neighbor man in his late twenties who has suddenly identified as a woman form a friendship, both victims of harassment. There is an unexpected reveal at the end.

The setting and stories were inspired by overheard conversations and observations from Gardiner’s own home region in Northern Virginia.

The stories each have an illustration that shows hands, reflecting an image from that story.

One of my favorites is “Virgin Summer” about a teenage boy who is an exchange student to France. He is taken in by a family struggling with the legacy of WWII. “Every time a name goes up on the French honor roll, someone comes out of the past to erase it.”

In “Survival”, an aging man’s walk ends with a challenge to his perceived family history.

An enjoyable collection about people just ‘north of ordinary.’

Thanks to the publisher for a free book. ( )