Swarm to Glory

The central motif and conflict that runs through Kilberg Cohen's newest collection is that of endings. Some may be monumental endings, such as the end of a relationship in “Bottle of Wine,” or the end of life itself in “Appropriate Behavior.” Then again, some may be considered superficial endings, such as in "The Woman With the Longest Hair," where a haircut is significant only to the characters involved. In the face of such endings, Garnett's characters must decide whether they will be ruled by them, or whether, in spite of the ephemeral nature of all things, they will swarm to glory. Nearly all these stories have been previously published in some of the nation's finest journals—from The Crab Orchard Review to The Michigan Quarterly Review, where her story won the Lawrence Foundation Prize for best story to appear in the journal that year.