Penny Guisinger

Postcards from Here Penny Guisinger

"Postcards from Here" is a capturing of a community, a harsh and beautiful place, a family, and the internal experience of its author in the form of micro-essays. The book takes on the realities of rural New England life, the moments and details that stitch a community together, the politics of being gay and divorced in such a place, and the visceral details of raising children, gardening, porcupines, travel, marriage, and other hazards of living. Written in a coastal community at the eastern edge of the United States, this book works to transcend the Maine depicted on touristy postcards by crafting missives its rural residents might really send-what true stories this place and its people have to tell. The individual pieces in "Postcards" tell stories that are both intensely personal and entirely communal in scope, and as a collection they create a portrait of one person's attempt to do a good job at this business of being human.