The Necessary Grace to Fall | Literary Criticism & Book Review

The Necessary Grace to Fall Critical Overview

Although Ochsner's first collection of stories, The Necessary Grace to Fall, won literary awards, it attracted little attention from reviewers. This is not unusual for a first collection from a young, unknown writer. However, Ochsner's second collection of stories, People I Wanted to Be (2005), did attract some notice. Interestingly, many of the comments of the reviewers about these stories might equally be applied to “The Necessary Grace to Fall.” The reviewer for Publishers Weekly, for example, describes Ochsner's characters as “a host of oddballs whose touchingly resilient hopes and small leaps of faith fly in the face of almost certain disappointment.” This well describes Howard's sudden and unexpected moment of grace at the end of the story, set against the accumulated tensions and disappointments of his life. The reviewer also mentions as a notable feature of Ochsner's stories, “the tension between small, improbable miracles and the damp, chilly world...
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