Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This wide-ranging collection indicates how deeply religious issues have affected modern writers. The stories focus on the workings of the divine in the world through miracles, epiphanies, and angels. Some stories, like Mark Twain's "The Story of the Good Little Boy" and John Steinbeck's "Saint Katy the Virgin," are satiric takes on the working of the supernatural in the natural. Others, like Eudora Welty's "A Still Moment" and Flannery O'Connor's "Revelation," reveal the mysterious ways that the divine works. Many of the pieces uncover a side to modern writers seldom seen in their major works. A welcome addition to the growing literature on angels. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

With angels hitting the airwaves and the cover of Time, it's not surprising that they'd be lionized literarily as well. What may prove surprising for some, however, is the fact that so many first-rate writers--Malamud, Tolstoy, Garcia Marquez, and Cheever, among them--have elected to center tales on members of the heavenly host. Some of the angelic heroes featured here are familiar--the angel Gabriel, for example, who appears in Isaac Asimov's "Last Trump"--but others, such as African American Angel Levine in Malamud's famous story of the same name, are a distinctly more contemporary sort of angel. Editor Grey has not just limited himself to angel stories. The Awakenings part of the title opens the door to stories about miracles, heaven, and a sainted pig named Katy in John Steinbeck's "Saint Katy the Virgin." A satisfying anthology whose popularity should be increased by its good timing. ~--Ilene Cooper