Transgressions: Stories - Tapa blanda

"Each of these fine, subtle stories begins with something a bit larger than a mustard seed -- an apricot, a splinter in an old woman's foot, a pump, cherries, a vegetarian setting out on a deer hunt -- and ends with a revelation of some aspect of the human landscape. Ms. Bingham writes with an austere and unerring knowledge of what it is to be human and -- transgressive." -- Paula Fox

Sallie Bingham examines modern-day "transgressions" in affairs of the heart. She offers up a menage a trois, an older woman's affair with a student, a painter who uses his age as an excuse to behave indecorously. But the reader quickly discovers the real transgressions are those of the self against the self.
In "The Pump" a woman lies about her love life because she worries over "Abandoned women - all that power turns to ashes when the fire's put out." In "The One True Place" a gay couple shelter a young man, though they understand he will erode their relationship. Bingham's stories are told with a sober reticence and the authority of real-life ambiguity: confusions of desire and morality, ambition and regret underlie each beautifully crafted tale.