Wellfleet Public Library

In conversation with Mo Ogrodnik

In a remarkable variety of forms and masterful prose, Suzanne McConnell's long-awaited short story collection If You Think Your Heart Can Take It traces people's lives caught on the brink of life-changing moments. Most of the stories in If You Think Your Heart Can Take It are realistic, some surrealistic, and a few are funny. Several protagonists are women struggling artistically while negotiating difficult relationships or trauma. Some are women striving to find love, balance, and selfhood in a male-dominated culture, the wildest of which uncovers the protagonist's rage as well as her voice. Three stories are darkly humorous short-shorts about writing. Other main characters include a child coming to grips with slaughtering on a small farm in San Diego, a vocation-less Puerto Rican man in Vieques, a bereaved Polish family in Brooklyn, a retiree post-Covid seeking connection, a homeless Black man in Manhattan, all striving to find their footing. Throughout this collection, McConnell focuses on those grappling with the courage to speak up and act from the heart, an inquiry delivered with an assured mastery of the short form.