Merilyn Simonds

Even before I opened Autobiography of a Garden, the title struck me as intriguing. A garden is writing its autobiography? Others have played with the notion of inanimate objects telling their stories. There’s Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, a survivor of disfiguring cancer; Autobiography of a Corpse…

At first, Blood Secrets seems an odd title for this latest collection of Nadine McInnis’s short stories. The term, to me, implies race and genetics, the maimers and killers that lie dormant, the unpredictable and merciless inheritance of birth. Instead, McInnis’s subject is dying. Most of the 13 stories in Blood Secrets take place in hospices and hospital rooms as…