Highly praised for her debut, How I Came West, and Why I Stayed (1993), Baker returns with another joyous collection of six short stories and a novella. Her characters and settings are wholly contemporary, yet her stories' key moments and themes usually pivot around age-old concerns, such as how to find love or how to let go of it. In the beautifully written title story, Oleander Joy is a processing clerk at the Institute for the Study of American Sexual Appetite, where she works in the Library of Desire. Although she has been madly in love with Wanda Beaver for years, she has never told her. Through a small series of chance encounters and meandering conversations, she finally finds the courage to act. In the novella "Almost Home," Decker flees the violence of the city and is nursed back to psychic health by his eccentric rural neighbors, Vietnam vet Bear and his wife, Velveeta, who have a front yard full of rocks bearing the message, "Help, turn me over!" With transcendent prose and soaring emotion, Baker captures the transforming moments in ordinary people's lives. --Joanne Wilkinson

Following the promising How I Came West, and Why I Stayed (LJ 6/1/93) comes Baker's second collection, which consists of six short stories and a novella, all written in her trademark nimble prose style. The tales are filled with quirky, all-too-human characters and unexpected plots. The title story, about Oleander Joy, a processing clerk at the Institute for the Study of American Sexual Appetite, Library of Desire section, stands out. Oleander spends her summer vacation detasseling corn and nourishing an unspoken love for Wanda Beaver, her crew boss. The novella, "Almost Home," is also excellent. It tells the story of Decker, who moves to the country to escape the random violence that killed his son. He gradually rebuilds his life through the friendship of a group of well-drawn, wacky neighbors. Baker is especially good when it comes to describing animals. This is a good choice for public library short story collections.‘Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In her second collection of short fiction, Baker (How I Came West, and Why I Stayed) crafts peculiar, improbably winsome tales‘six stories and one novella‘about disorderly lives. Although she never presumes to resolve her principals' futures, the author is an optimist; her stories generally end when a character finds peace. As in real life, true epiphanies are rare. Yet the remarkable title story features a transcendent resolution romantic enough to merit a sigh: Oleander Joy spends her summers detasseling corn and imagining a cozy domestic life with her crew boss, Wanda Beaver, but she can't gather the courage to approach her. During the off-season, Oleander dreams of her crush and works at the improbably named ``Institute for the Study of American Sexual Appetite,'' where she embodies the commonplace human desire‘and dread‘of attaining a longtime wish. Baker's other tales aren't quite as unusual as the title story, but most share its climate of fearful expectancy. ``Ooh, Baby, Baby'' and the novella, ``Almost Home,'' concern divorced men whose animal companions are far more reliable than humans; ``The Third Person'' introduces a middle-aged lesbian couple, one of whom is trying to downplay her terror of her inoperable cancer; ``Convocation'' describes a doting mother's sweet but frustrated attempts to console her manic-depressive daughter. Such cheerless scenarios, however, belie Baker's sensitive, bittersweet humor, and the roundabout way that her characters come to accept life's setbacks. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved