My Two Cents: THEIR FRAGILE MALE EGOS by Angel Van Atta

Don't let the title of Angel Van Atta's new release, "Their Fragile Males Egos," fool you. This collection of short stories, some new, others previously published, are all about women. While male characters occupy space in these pages, it's the female leads who take centerstage in eleven twisted tales of domestic abuse, physical assault, childhood trauma, psychological torture, and vengeful female empowerment.

Each story is both brutal and bleak, and Van Atta writes with a disciplined voice akin to a veteran war correspondent, delivering grim and gory details with matter-of-fact brevity and in unflinching detail. She doesn't try to smooth down rough edges or soften harsh narrative blows. She wields her keyboard like a weapon, driving home the full scope of anguish and agony, both physical and emotional, that her characters endure.

For some, like in "Abbie" -- where a woman faces the ghosts of her past, both literally and figuratively -- there's redemption in the end. For others, like "Susy" -- whose husband's cruel designs keep her hobbled with self-loathing and doubt -- there's vengeance. In others, like "Betty" -- a woman who must make an unimaginable choice during a violent home invasion -- the ending is more emotionally ambiguous and anything but happy.

(And don't get me started on "Sammie," because that story, thematically reminiscent of movies like Eden Lake or The Strangers, is going to haunt me for a long time to come.)

It's hard to say I enjoyed a book as dark as this, but at the same time, it's impossible not to be moved by Van Atta's powerful, provocative writing. She knows how to trigger visceral responses in her readers, and clearly understands that the true horror in these stories is the grim realization that the relationships and situations they portray, although fictional, are only too real, and occur every day to countless women around the world. Maybe, Van Atta's stories posit, they're happening right now in your very neighborhood -- if not your own home.

"Their Fragile Male Egos" is available here.