Book Review: What World is This? and Other Stories

What World Is This? and Other Stories is the collection of Catholic fiction short stories published by Tuscany Press featuring the winners of their annual contest. Upon opening this book, I had no idea what to expect, but I must say, I was very pleasantly surprised and pleased by the fiction presented in this collection.

Editor Joseph O'Brien writes in his introduction, "The editors of Tuscany Press humbly submit both last year's stories and especially this new crop of tales as evidence that the Catholic writing world has a great desire to incorporate 'believable faith' and also to acknowledge that the transcendent is believable as an element of fiction precisely because it appeals to both the things of this world while anticipating the things of the next."

The writers and editors have succeeded admirably. From National Book Award Winner Gloria Whelan's tale of two young girls who make up a story about a Marian apparition, to Natalia Sarkissian sharing the tale of a young woman riding a bus to face her demons, to Mary Finnegan writing about a marriage trying to recover from an affair, to Samuel Miller's tale of a priest hearing the confession of an unusual hitchhiker, each of the stories in this book will keep you turning pages and appreciating all that Catholic fiction has to offer.