Waiting for the Paraclete

The people in Lise Goett's stunning collection are waiting-restlessly, blindly, hopefully-for the one who gives succor, the Paraclete of the title. With a vision both expansive and acute, Goett takes in everything from a fishing accident in Wisconsin to a butcher's stall in Paris and even the life and death of Gary Gilmore, to focus with a rare combination of emotional exactitude and music on the forces that govern the world of the flesh as it transforms into the world of the spirit.