Zumas's stories earn the praise you have undoubtedly read/heard: the literary developed world is full of angsty and despondent characters, but Zumas finds new ways into them through a kind of obscurantism and narrative filters, essentially keeping readers as off-center as her contagonists. Be patient as you approach each story: its oblique and disconnected images resolve ultimately, sometimes into surprises, sometimes tragedies, sometimes a "human midnight" (so-called in one of her stories) which we had never presumed. More, the stories in order slide us ever towards a larger canvas of comprehension which is its own reward.