Whole Worlds Could Pass Away: Collected Stories
Rickey Gard Diamond's stories are at once familiar and startling, grounded in remarkable everyday experiences as well as in the raw and dreadful. Published in a range of journals and magazines like The Sewanee Review, Plainswoman, Other Voices, The Louisville Review, and Trivia, Diamond's characters and settings resonate with a language and voice uniquely her own. These eleven stories, from Bears to Worms, reveal a common thread in our collective and inner lives.
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Here is a bold and restless collection of short stories bursting with originality and energy. Rickey Gard Diamond's stories are a powerful attack on the conventional and a celebration of individual freedom. What we do with our lives is our business, and the strictures of society--particularly in relation to gender issues and traditional institutions--are to be flaunted. The creation of a unique lifestyle is to be applauded as it requires honesty, courage, perseverance, and self-respect. Sena Jeter Naslund, Ahab's Wife and The Fountain of St. James Cour, or Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman
"Rickey Gard Diamond's Whole Worlds Could Pass Away is an eclectic collection of short stories, each a convincing world in its own right and populated by characters who instantly engage and fascinate the reader. Whether two sisters who are "home" to scatter their mother's ashes, or an aging pharmacist who may have made a fatal mistake, it's easy to plunge into their individual universes and be caught up in the lives Diamond has made for them. She shows us the complexities of fallible people and our circumstances, in a strong writing style that carries us along with delightful phrases like 'a reasonable gargoyle.' " Mary Dingee Fillmore, An Address in Amsterdam
"There is so much competition for our attention in the world today. Hence first lines become of crucial importance. In her short story collection Whole Worlds Could Pass Away, Rickey Gard Diamond captures readers with openings like "She'd not remembered the bear for decades, until a day when it was useful," and "I swear I would have heard the alarm, except I was standing on the beach with Aunt Caroline who's been dead for two years." Fiction can be escape, escape much needed in fraught times such as ours. These stories do the job. They introduce us to complicated characters who can make our own troubles seem quaint and controllable. They take us to places far from our comfort zones -- both geographic and conceptual. We leave Rickey Gard Diamond's world better prepared to accommodate our own. Or as Jonathan, in her story "Worms," advises "You can go anywhere, if you've got yourself a good bike."
--Peter Laufer, George Polk Award winner, David Wolper Best Documentary Prize winner, author, journalist and filmmaker
"A richly evocative, atmospheric collection, related as beads on a string relate--separate yet similar while creating a whole and fascinating artifact." Delia Robinson, A Shirtwaist Story
Whole Worlds Could Pass Away: Collected Stories, whilst taking the reader on a fictional journey, very clearly raises feminist issues, women's struggles in a man's world, antisocial behavior, snobbery, poverty and more. These taboo subjects are almost normalized, not sensationalized, but simply made 'real-life'. Rickey Gard Diamond's brilliant writing technique exposes society's imbalances and, in particular, the struggles of women. The author may well challenge your beliefs. I would definitely recommend this book for all adult readers." 5 Star Review By Sharon Elizabeth Newman for Readers' Favorite
Diamond has honed her craft for decades through short stories published in literary and feminist journals, through her novel Second Sight, and as founding editor of Vermont Woman. In this collection of previously published work, her skill and wisdom shine."
--Elizabeth M. Seyler, Assistant Editor, Seven Days, Vermont's Independent Voice
