Review: ‘The World To Come’

Jim Shepard is a patient storyteller, allowing his short stories the space they need to delve deeply into the emotional lives of his characters. His new collection, 'The World to Come,' is made up of beautiful, heartbreaking stories.

Two of them — 'HMS Terror' and the title story — take the form of journals recorded by characters who begin with high hopes and come to grief. 'HMS Terror' is an account of British sailors on an expedition to find the Northwest Passage while 'The World to Come' is the story of two farm women who seek solace in one another. The stories unfold slowly, gathering emotional power with each journal entry.

The story 'Cretan Love Song' appears between 'HMS Terror' and 'The World to Come' in the collection, and it amply demonstrates Shepard's ability to pack a lifetime of emotion into just a few pages. 'Cretan Love Song' is the story of a man and his son desperate to make it home before a tidal wave destroys everything and everyone they love. The longing for a final embrace is palpable on the page.

By and large, the stories in 'The World to Come' are stories of disaster and of hopes dashed. But they also are stories of courage in the face of the insurmountable and of human connection forged in the direst of circumstances.

Shepard im

[naviga:h3 style="padding-left: 30px;"]BOOK READING

What: Jim Shepard reads from 'The World to Come'

Where: Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City

When: 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23

Cost: Free

merses himself and his readers in worlds his characters inhabit, finding the perfect narrative voice to capture a moment in time and the people who occupy it.

'The World to Come' is the work of a master of his craft.

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