I wrote a bit of a love letter to Polly Dugan’s new collection So Much a Part of You in the paper this week; it’s a really good book, and it’s always gratifying to discover talented new Portland writers. (Last week’s was Smith Henderson, if you missed it.)
Dugan’s ship didn’t come in overnight; as she told Steve Almond in a recent Rumpus interview, she started writing in earnest in 2006, after a long post-college hiatus from writing, and she attended the Tin House writers workshop four years in a row, before signing a two book deal with Little, Brown in 2013.
In my review, I wrote:
So Much a Part of You marries the scope of a novel with the graceful economy of a good short story. The linked stories in the collection are individually modest, almost unobtrusive. Set against one another, though, they reveal surprising connections—reflecting perspective and insight back onto themselves.