STUMBLING TOWARD GRACE by Rosalia Scalia
--A 2021 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize Nominee--
Sometimes we try to connect to others, especially people we love but end up missing each other for a variety of reasons.
The stories in STUMBLING TOWARD GRACE explore instances of imperfect people trying to connect to loved ones and others despite fractured relationships and personal flaws. These are ordinary people striving to survive and thrive in situations reflective of today’s challenges.
A wife can no longer deal with her husband's recent paralysis.
A husband desperately wants his wife to reconsider separating.
A terminally ill man seeks to reconnect with his estranged daughter after cutting ties over an interracial marriage.
A freelancing nun attempts to "save" a single mother from the perils of society.
Rosalia Scalia vigorously examines people at their best and their worst. We are invited to witness how people who love each other struggle to reconnect their fractured relationships in the face of traumas, personal flaws, and unspoken hurts. STUMBLING TOWARD GRACE combines loss and grief with humor and grace as characters navigate their unwise decisions, unexpected deaths, or their resentments polished into gems.
Book Details
Genre: literary fiction, story collection
ISBN: 978-1-950730-82-7
Publication Date: November 9, 2021
Podcast Interview with On The Record
Praise for STUMBLING TOWARD GRACE
Rosalia Scalia is Baltimore’s Flannery O’Connor. She inhabits her disparate characters, warts and all. Not an easy task considering the bigots, religious fanatics, hoarders, alcoholics, drug users, and damaged lives presented here. And yet, like the fictional Father Brown, she refrains from judgments, allowing each a generous shot at redemption.
—Richard Peabody, editor/publisher, Gargoyle Magazine
These stories are like a diamond, and Scalia's prose is a fine cut. Her debut sparkles with the energy of its characters -- all of them radiate their hopes, their tragedies, their humanity on the page. Reading this collection is like being given a close, multi-faceted look right into the heart of a city and its people."
— Susan Muaddi Darraj