HAPPINESS IS A CHEMICAL IN THE BRAIN

Poet Lucia Perillo demonstrates a talent for the short story in this debut collection of 14 stories, set in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetic background is demonstrated in her lyrical prose. The stories’ settings are spartan trailer parks and low-rent homes; the characters are working-class females who face the world on their own terms, stuck in their lives and making no excuses. Narrator Carrington MacDuffie delivers the stories, each one in the first person, with the straightforward, honest delivery of people who hold no false illusions about life’s fairness. She balances the humor and despair that allow the characters to fight for another day. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2012]