A Mississippi Delta town is vividly brought to life in Eudora Welty's THE GOLDEN APPLES, and Sherwood Anderson's WINESBURG, OHIO is the real Midwest. Short story collections bound together by a sense of community are an important part of our literature. With FIFTY YEARS OF ETERNAL VIGILANCE & Other Stories, Carolyn Thorman joins a fine literary tradition. Her stories revolve around émigrés from Lithuania and Poland who settle in a working-class neighborhood of Baltimore and a small town near Morgantown, West Virginia. In an environment that centers around Old World values, Thorman develops her characters and their dreams and heartaches with the adroitness of Anne Tyler and the wrenching illumination of Flannery O'Connor. The triumph of the human spirit is evident in Thorman's stories. The strength of women is represented by characters as appealing as Galena Restinas, who, through her generosity and cunning, accomplishes something far beyond her expectations, and by the heroine in the title story who inspires admiration for maintaining a special Eastern European tradition. The perspicacity of the narrator in "Society for the Benefit of the Daughters of Vilnius" and the fortitude of the sisters in "Binkas Sausage" exemplify the tenacity of the immigrants to be a part of the new culture while at the same time retaining their separateness.The characters in FIFTY YEARS OF ETERNAL VIGILANCE are interesting because of their unique customs, but their struggles strike a sympathetic chord that resounds beyond ethnic heritage, prompting the reader to acknowledge the consequences of inappropriate action and spiritual weakness as well as the joyful celebration of existence. Thorman provides a lyrical voice for this ragtag log of new pilgrims-a voice to stir the reader's anticipation for more. Read Less