This stories in this collection ask the reader to evaluate the humanness of the characters as well as readers’ own humaneness and capacity for empathy.

A man recently released from prison returns to the dating scene and struggles to find the right time to reveal his long-past murder conviction. A grieving mother considers her own role in her son’s death. A boy enables the destructive addiction of the person he’s in love with. A dog, witness to his owner’s violent acts, begins to sweat. Each story in Rebecca Bernard’s Our Sister Who Will Not Die (Madcreek Books, 2022) brings the reader face to face with the frailties of human character—and demonstrates how the yearning for love and connection allows beauty and resilience to emerge from darkness. In questioning traditional formulations of good and evil, Bernard’s stories ask us to recognize our own culpabilities and acknowledge our shared humanity. None of us is the worst thing we’ve ever done, these stories compel us to believe. Hope is always worth letting in.

Iqra Shagufta Cheema is a writer, researcher, and chronic procrastinator. When they do write, they write in the areas of transnational feminisms, gender and sexuality studies, film studies, and postmodernist postcolonial literatures. Check out their latest book chapter Queer Love: He is also Made in Heaven. They can be reached via email at IqraSCheema@gmail.com or Twitter.

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Rebecca Bernard, "Our Sister Who Will Not Die: Stories" (Madcreek Books, 2022)