From Publishers Weekly
As they contemplate what might have been, three protagonists succumb to an abiding sense of melancholy in the first half of this finely wrought collection of 10 stories, winner of the 1998 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. In "Three Weeks in Italy and France," a woman recalls her close friendship with a fellow artist, now dead, and the particulars of a shared youthful journey that ended in a jealous rift. A grown woman looks back to childhood and admires her mother's prodigious sacrifice in "Bonaparte." At the center of "Dark Matter" lies a son's inability to grieve for a father who never appreciated him. In the novella and connected stories of Part Two, a daughter searches for family truths in a narrative that spans 30 years. Maggie's father, WWII veteran Raymond Gerhardt, was a hard-working carpenter who relentlessly pursued the American dream until depression consumed him. Maggie's mother, Ruth, a reluctant homemaker who longs to write poetry, refuses to admit that her husband may have committed suicide. Both women worry about Ray Jr., an aimless alcoholic whose Bronze Star may not have been justly earned in Vietnam. Maggie's husband, Bill, is a war casualty of a different sort; a draft dodger who sought refuge in Canada, he assuages his guilt by working as an orderly in a VA hospital. The ambiguities in their lives, their different perceptions of events and the "necessary fictions" that make tragedies bearable are Croft's focus. "In the last analysis, our story exists in the tales we do not tell," one character says. Croft's ear for dialogue is keen and accurate, her descriptions painterly, her characterizations spare and on the mark. This work shows more of the quiet but accomplished craftsmanship already demonstrated in Croft's previous collection, Primary Colors and Other Stories. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
A collection of ten stories that earned author Croft (Primary Colors, 1991) the 1998 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Mostly set in the rural Midwest, Croft's stories move slowly through the unfolding routines of family affairs and clan history. Theyre written in a cyclical, almost obsessive style. That reflects the continual gathering and re-gathering of the same people in the same places, again and again: domestic life, in other words. The unhappily married college professor of ``The Woman in the Headlights,'' for example, is unable to take any pleasure from his surreptitious love affair, partly because hes haunted by the automobile accident in which he killed an elderly pedestrian some years before. In ``Bonaparte,'' an artistic young mother abandons her dull husband and runs away to New Orleans with her little boy; there, she begins an abortive affair but returns to Chicago when her husband comes looking for her. ``Them'' is about two families that suddenly collide: the drab suburbanites who live in a Frank Lloyd Wrightstyle house in Illinois, and the troubled intellectual tourists who ask to be allowed a look inside. The most ambitious piece, however, is the title novella, portraying the family life of Ray Gerhardt, a carpenter and father of three, whose obsession with building the perfect home leads to his apparent suicide when hes unable to face the compromises demanded of him by the contracting business. Like all tales here, its taut, evocative, and haunting. A light touch and a good ear will always carry the day: Croft fits her voice to her characters perfectly and, with consummate skill, fits her characters to their world. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Tim O'Brien
"A work of uncommon intelligence, power, and literary grace. The three connected stories and novella in this volum the Gerhardt family, which we come to know as intimately as our own parents and siblings. Barbara Croft is a writer with breathtaking gifts, and Necessary Fictions is a book to be treasured." - Tim O'Brien a writer with breathtaking gifts, and Necessary Fictions is a book to be treasured."


Bharati Mukherjee
"Necessary Fictions has a thematic resonance that echoes long after the reading. These stories of guilt, bitterness, loss, connectedness are, individually, and in total, magnificent."


Book Description
Selected as the 1998 Drue Heinz Literature Prize Award winner. Storytelling and art are major themes of this collection. The stories center on the need for expression, the pain of failing in artistic expression, and the ways in which we construct imaginative representations of our lives, the "necessary fictions" that allow us to live. At the heart of the book is a series of three interconnected stories and a novella concerning Raymond Gerhardt and his family. Ray is a carpenter, a World War II veteran, obsessed with building the perfect home for his family. When he dies, a possible suicide, his wife and children are left to sort out the meaning of his life and their own.


About the Author
Barbara Croft edits Writer to Writer, a literary journal that focuses on the craft of writing. She has worked as a teacher, editor, journalist, public relations writer, and out-of-print book dealer. Her work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, the Women's Review of Books, the Georgia Review, Colorado Quarterly, and other literary journals. She is the author of A Vision, and Primary Colors and Other Stories, which won the Minnesota Voices Project literary competition in 1989. She lives in Oak Park, Illinois.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Storytelling and art are major themes of this collection. The stories center on the need for expression, the pain of failing in artistic expression, and the ways in which we construct imaginative representations of our lives, the "necessary fictions" that allow us to live. At the heart of the book is a series of three interconnected stories in a novella concerning Raymond Gerhardt and his family. Ray is a carpenter, a World War II veteran obsessed with building the perfect home for his family. When he dies, a possible suicide, his wife and children are left to sort out the meaning of his life and their own.

FROM THE CRITICS

NY Times Book Review

...Technically proficient...

Publishers Weekly

As they contemplate what might have been, three protagonists succumb to an abiding sense of melancholy in the first half of this finely wrought collection of 10 stories, winner of the 1998 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. In "Three Weeks in Italy and France," a woman recalls her close friendship with a fellow artist, now dead, and the particulars of a shared youthful journey that ended in a jealous rift. A grown woman looks back to childhood and admires her mother's prodigious sacrifice in "Bonaparte." At the center of "Dark Matter" lies a son's inability to grieve for a father who never appreciated him. In the novella and connected stories of Part Two, a daughter searches for family truths in a narrative that spans 30 years. Maggie's father, WWII veteran Raymond Gerhardt, was a hard-working carpenter who relentlessly pursued the American dream until depression consumed him. Maggie's mother, Ruth, a reluctant homemaker who longs to write poetry, refuses to admit that her husband may have committed suicide. Both women worry about Ray Jr., an aimless alcoholic whose Bronze Star may not have been justly earned in Vietnam. Maggie's husband, Bill, is a war casualty of a different sort; a draft dodger who sought refuge in Canada, he assuages his guilt by working as an orderly in a VA hospital. The ambiguities in their lives, their different perceptions of events and the "necessary fictions" that make tragedies bearable are Croft's focus. "In the last analysis, our story exists in the tales we do not tell," one character says. Croft's ear for dialogue is keen and accurate, her descriptions painterly, her characterizations spare and on the mark.

Booknews

A collection of stories centering on the need for artistic expression, the pain of failing in artistic expression, and the ways in which we construct imaginative representations of our lives. At the heart of the collection are three interconnected stories and a novella about a family trapped in the ideologies of patriarchy and the American dream. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

NY Times Book Review

...[T]echnically proficient...

Kirkus Reviews

A collection of 10 stories that earned author Croft (Primary Colors and Other Stories, 1991) the 1998 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Mostly set in the rural Midwest, Croft's stories move slowly through the unfolding routines of family affairs and clan history. They're written in a cyclical, almost obsessive style. That reflects the continual gathering and re-gathering of the same people in the same places, again and again: domestic life, in other words. The unhappily married college professor of "The Woman in the Headlights," for example, is unable to take any pleasure from his surreptitious love affair, partly because he's haunted by the automobile accident in which he killed an elderly pedestrian some years before. In "Bonaparte," an artistic young mother abandons her dull husband and runs away to New Orleans with her little boy; there, she begins an abortive affair but returns to Chicago when her husband comes looking for her. "Them" is about two families that suddenly collide: the drab suburbanites who live in a Frank Lloyd Wright-style house in Illinois, and the troubled intellectual tourists who ask to be allowed a look inside. The most ambitious piece, however, is the title novella, portraying the family life of Ray Gerhardt, a carpenter and father of three, whose obsession with building the perfect home leads to his apparent suicide when he's unable to face the compromises demanded of him by the contracting business. Like all tales here, it's taut, evocative, and haunting.