“Everything she knew she’d read somewhere”: Allison Renner’s review of The Dime Museum by Joyce Hinnefeld

The Dime Museum by Joyce Hinnefeld
Unbridled Books (August 2025)

The Dime Museum is one of those rare collections that somehow manages to feel both expansive and deeply intimate. Each story stands beautifully on its own, yet as the book unfolds, you realize you’re also being drawn into something much larger: an intricate mosaic of intersecting lives.

As I read, I often found myself pausing just to think: Wait, how do these characters know each other? Sometimes the connection was clear, but other times it was just a subtle mention. I loved that feeling of discovery, of slowly realizing how these lives were linked. It was like being in the middle of a richly layered family and social circle, where everyone’s past and present seemed to echo into each other’s stories.

There’s definitely a bit of a puzzle to it all, in the best possible way. I wasn’t always sure how people were related or how their histories overlapped, and then, pages or even stories later, there’d be this quiet moment of recognition. A shared loss. A missed chance. A connection that almost was. That kind of narrative layering made the reading experience incredibly satisfying. By the time I finished, I wanted to start again right away, this time with a fuller understanding of how everything—and everyone—fit together.

Spanning decades and crossing continents, from the vaudeville stages of early 20th-century America to the isolation and grief of the COVID pandemic, Hinnefeld’s stories explore the lasting effects of privilege, desire, caregiving, and personal history. At the center is Charlie, a young man trying to make sense of the life and legacy he’s inherited. But really, the emotional core of the book reaches far beyond him: to a great-great-grandmother in love with a male impersonator, to a nurse carrying the weight of loss, to a Vietnam veteran who quietly tends a garden. Each character, in their own way, is navigating love, identity, and the shadow of the past.

What I appreciated most, though, was the tenderness with which Hinnefeld writes about ordinary lives. She captures the quiet beauty and deep ache of simply trying to care for one another in a fragile world. There’s no sugarcoating here, but there is hope. Even amid heartbreak and missed connections, there’s a persistent sense of resilience: in poetry, in chosen family, and in small acts of grace.

The Dime Museum is the kind of novel-in-stories that will stick with you. Because of how beautifully it’s written, of course, but also because of how deeply it makes you feel. These characters and their quiet struggles have a way of taking root. Days later, you’ll find yourself thinking about them in unexpected moments: when you pass a garden, hear a piece of music, or notice the way one generation mirrors another. It’s a book that sensitizes you to connection, to memory, to the small, tender ways people try to care for each other across time.

Allison Renner’s fiction and photography have appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal, Ellipsis Zine, Six Sentences, Rejection Letters, Atlas and Alice, Misery Tourism, Versification, FERAL, and vulnerary magazine. Her chapbook Won’t Be By Your Side is out from Alien Buddha Press. She can be found online at allisonrennerwrites.com and on X @AllisonRWrites.