Pat Jasper collects memories and transforms them into insights. In The Outlines of Our Warm Bodies, she focuses on the “small close spaces” of the family — on domestic relationships, crises and patterns, on coming to terms with time and its power to destroy and to heal.

Whether inspired by incidents — a pulled hamstring, breast reduction surgery, the death of a parent — or by objects infused with emotion — a grocery list left behind, the outline of angels in the snow — Jasper demonstrates a remarkably strong narrative voice, excelling as a story-teller who carefully unravels the yarn of a woman’s life.