Set in the Michigan landscape that Charles Baxter has made his own, these thirteen exquisite stories illuminate the often curious connections of relatives and strangers. "You can't just get a brother off the street," says the narrator of the title story, but indeed he does. In another, a woman tries to elude her lover's voice by spending an entire day without words. A marriage is jostled by the departure of a friend during a snowstorm. Baxter's stories tend to be love stories, but it is love tinged with fear, even danger, where shock, comedy, and love combine in unexpected ways. Book jacket.
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • “A powerful, heartbreaking, necessary masterpiece.”—Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wild The moving story of what one woman learned from fostering a newborn—about injustice, about making mistakes, about how to better love and protect people beyond our immediate kin May you always feel at home. After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Sentilles and her husband, Eric, decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system’s goal is the child’s reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question them, evaluate them, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their lives—even if it means most likely having to give the child back. After years of starts and stops, and endless navigation of the complexities and injustices of the foster care system, a phone call finally comes: a three-day-old baby girl named Coco, in immediate need of a foster family. Sarah and Eric bring this newborn stranger home. “You were never ours,” Sarah tells Coco, “yet we belong to each other.” A love letter to Coco and to the countless children like her, Stranger Care chronicles Sarah’s discovery of what it means to mother—in this case, not just a vulnerable infant but the birth mother who loves her, too. Ultimately, Coco’s story reminds us that we depend on family, and that family can take different forms. With prose that Nick Flynn has called “fearless, stirring, rhythmic,” Sentilles lays bare an intimate, powerful story with universal concerns: How can we care for and protect one another? How do we ensure a more hopeful future for life on this planet? And if we’re all related—tree, bird, star, person—how might we better live?
Filled with the bestselling, award-winning author's trademark wordplay and inventive storytelling, here is the dizzyingly entertaining, wickedly humorous story of a mysterious stranger whose sudden appearance during a family’s summer holiday transforms four variously unhappy people. Each of the Smarts—parents Eve and Michael, son Magnus, and the youngest, daughter Astrid—encounter Amber in his or her own solipsistic way, but somehow her presence allows them to see their lives (and their life together) in a new light. Smith’s narrative freedom and exhilarating facility with language propel the novel to its startling, wonderfully enigmatic conclusion.
“A story of money, family, who you can trust, and the extremes to which one will go for blood. I couldn’t put it down.” —Lisa Ling, host of CNN’s This Is Life Keep your family close and your enemies closer. Beth is the darling of God Halsa, a pharmaceutical giant, and she’s got the outrageous salary and lifestyle to prove it. Until she lands in white-collar women’s prison, thanks to a high-profile whistleblower suit. Sam, Beth’s husband, used to be the town’s most eligible bachelor, and he’s never had to do anything for himself. Until his wife goes to jail, and he’s left to raise two daughters on his own. Lise, the au pair, is the whistleblower. But is she? Everyone knows she’s not clever enough to have done it alone. Hannah, Sam’s sister, is devoted to her family. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for them. Eva, Beth’s sister, is the smart one. (Read: not the pretty one.) Her life seems perfect on the surface, but sibling rivalry runs deep. Martin, Beth’s brother, is the firstborn, the former golden boy turned inside-the Beltway businessman. But what is he hiding? Someone knows something. Someone betrayed Beth. This is the story of the Min-Lindstroms. This is the story of the all-American family as it implodes under the weight of secrets, lies and the unchecked desire for wealth and power. A.H. Kim is an immigrant, graduate of Harvard College and Berkeley Law, lawyer, and mother of two sons. She lives in San Francisco with her husband. A Good Family is her first novel. Don't miss A.H. Kim's next exciting family drama, Relative Strangers!
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Colorado Book Award As a working mother and poet-lecturer, Camille Dungy’s livelihood depended on travel. She crisscrossed America and beyond with her daughter in tow, history shadowing their steps, always intensely aware of how they were perceived, not just as mother and child but as black women. From the San Francisco of settlers’ dreams to the slave-trading ports of Ghana, from snow-white Maine to a festive yet threatening bonfire in the Virginia pinewoods, Dungy finds fear and trauma but also mercy, kindness, and community. Penetrating and generous, this is an essential guide for a troubled land.
