The Vineyard Haven library will welcome Lesley Mahoney O’Connell for a discussion of her newly released story collection, “Ripple Effects and Other Stories.”
O’Connell’s landscapes and seascapes help readers recognize and feel the strengths, flaws, and compromises her characters are developing as they navigate their life choices. “Ripple Effects” features mostly quiet but intelligent characters who see themselves as outsiders in their own worlds. Some swim through currents of parental self-centeredness; others, lacking ordinary filters, dream impossible dreams as they ignore career crises and marital ennui. O’Connell is especially good at exploring the interior lives, the caves and cliffs carved by deep losses, and creating empathy and often a sense of peace in readers.
O’Connell’s stories are connected by nuanced water motifs, and explore the dynamics of both ripples and riptides. Several feature empowered women, or women on the road to empowerment. At their core, most of these stories hint at the strength and hope which can arise in disheartening circumstances.
O’Connell lives on the South Shore of Massachusetts with her husband and son. Her fiction has appeared in Post Road, Psychopomp, and Solstice. She co-ran a reading series in Jamaica Plain, and regularly takes classes at Boston’s GrubStreet and Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center. She works with healthcare in communications, marketing, and digital strategy.
This event will be held at 4 pm on Friday, Sept. 25, at the Vineyard Haven library, 200 Main St. in Vineyard Haven. Free and open to the public, no registration required. For more information, contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or 508-696-4211.
