On "Hit-and-Run" by Douglas Light (5156 words) *****

As I noted in my write-up of Light's first collection, some of his most powerful stories build on small details, using them for multiple effect. In this story, for example, accidents become a motif that forge both the main event of the story and the aura in which the story resides. A man is hit by a car on a walk home after museum show opening. But such is not the first scar he will bear. His face is scarred by something else entirely, something that draws a woman toward him, but the story behind the scar is multivaried, the truth something we will never know. Just as we can't know the real essence of a person involved in an accident whose name shows up in a newspaper, no matter how many people are interviewed, we can't know what really resides behind the features of a person's face. The stories go on forever. You can read the story here at Night Train.