A collection of stories that Carolyn Osborn has developed over two
decades, Where We Are Now is about a single family, the Moores.
Marianne is the main narrator of these stories about her mother's
family. In the first tale, "The Greats," her relatives are so distant
Marianne can only give brief glimpses of the eccentric Moores. "The
Grands," an O. Henry Prize-winning story, first introduced readers to
many of the characters who inhabit Where We Are Now. By knowing the
Moores, we begin to know Marianne, who tries to understand them. Curious
as she is, she must continually accept the mystery of reality. Aware of
the need for family mythology, she orders her world as best she can with
what she is given by reacting, reflecting, inventing, and enlarging on
the fragments. Other narrators reveal omissions Marianne can never know.
Marianne's life and the lives of the Moores have a definitively southern
flavor; they mirror fading 19th-century morality, an acceptance of
eccentricity, the habit of storytelling, a strong consciousness of
place, and the influence as well as the particularity of family. These
stories are an attempt to show the failures and triumphs of love, the
necessity of forgiveness, and the usefulness of different sorts of
families.
