From childhood to old age, the remarkable women of She Receives the Night bear the burden of the world’s darkness and carry it toward the light.

Robert Earle’s dazzling stories illuminate the decisive moment in a woman’s life when she realizes she must break through the shells and traps of relationships gone bad, customs too confining, governments too brutal, and grief too relentless.

Like their counterparts in the fiction of Joy Williams and Alice Munro, these characters are tormented but resilient, abused but unyielding, sharp-eyed and sharp-witted. Na Cheon escapes a work camp in North Korea … Elizabeth rescues Marta from war in Central America … Henry becomes Henrietta in New York … Diane assumes the presidency in Washington … Katherine defies the police north of Rome … Lucy finds peace in the Oregon woods.

She Receives the Night tells stories of women everywhere from New Mexico to Melbourne. They are young and old. Their lives are the landscape of the heart.