Description

YOUR NEXT READ FROM THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR of ROMANTIC COMEDY, PREP and AMERICAN WIFE

‘Messy and delicious’ New York Times

‘Sittenfeld is in a league of her own’ Guardian

‘One of my favourite authors’ KATE ATKINSON, author of Death at the Sign of the Rook

‘Anything Sittenfeld writes, we’ll read’ People

‘She understands women so well; like having someone look straight into your soul’ Reader review*****
______
Razor-sharp, glittering tales exploring marriage, fame and female friendship, from the Sunday Times bestselling author.

In this compulsive collection of twelve witty stories, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as beloved for her short fiction as she is for her novels, as she conjures up characters so real that they seem like old friends.

In ‘The Patron Saints of Middle Age,’ a woman visits two friends she hasn’t seen since her divorce. In ‘A for Alone,’ a married artist embarks on a project intended to disprove the so-called Mike Pence Rule, which suggests that women and men can’t spend time alone together without lusting after each other. And in ‘Lost but Not Forgotten,’ Sittenfeld gives readers of her novel Prep a new window into the world of her beloved character Lee Fiora, decades later, when Lee attends an awkward school reunion.

Witty, confronting and full of tenderness, Sittenfeld peels back layer after layer of our inner lives, keeping us riveted to the page with her utterly distinctive voice.

READERS CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF CURTIS SITTENFELD:

‘Small windows into modern life and as such highly entertaining. Curtis, you’re a star!’ *****

‘Sittenfeld understands women so well, it’s like having someone look straight into your soul’*****

‘Devoured! You’ll recognise yourself and others in these pages’ *****

‘No-one else writes with such precision and amusement’ Red Magazine

Publisher Review

Sittenfeld zooms in on urban Midwesterners dealing with middle-aged disillusions in this witty story collection…In one sparkling comedy of manners after another, the author documents with a clear and affectionate eye how tiny prejudices and blind spots lead her protagonists astray. These stories entertain and unsettle in equal measure. * Publishers Weekly * [Sittenfeld’s] perfectly contained stories are a joy for their realistically and mundanely fractured characters, moral ambiguities, movingly related moments, and the message that even the smallest tale offers lessons to uncover. * Booklist, starred review * Curtis Sittenfeld is one of America’s best working novelists . . . expect her usual, startlingly intelligent treatment of emotions and relationships * GQ *