A book of consistently arresting and engaging stories about family life.
Gerber collects stories from across five decades in this volume of short fiction.
The author has had a prolific career stretching back to the 1960s. In addition to her 19 novels for children and adults, she has published dozens of short stories (including 42 in Redbook alone). This volume collects some of the best, including the O. Henry Award–winning “I Don’t Believe This,” in which a woman helps her sister navigate her separation from an abusive and suicidal husband. Family is a frequent topic across these tales. In one story, a young woman who’s never been to a funeral travels to New York to attend her uncle’s memorial service, where she’s exposed not only to death for the first time, but also to the long-simmering resentments of her father’s family. “We pile back in the cars, in the same distribution as before, and we drive away,” the woman narrates after the event. “There. I have seen a funeral—I have seen it all, and what do I know? I have understood nothing.” In another, more humorous look at family dynamics, a woman recounts the period of her childhood when her father attempted to become an inventor. (One of his ideas: fried chicken–skin sandwiches to be sold at Coney Island.) Another recurring theme across these 25 stories is the way in which the past inevitably intrudes on the present, even after many years. A young mother gets a call one day out of the blue from a man she went to college with but hasn’t heard from since: “I had thought of Ricky often in the kind of reveries in which we all engage when we count the lives that never were meant to be for us,” she admits. A number of the stories—including “Anna in Chains,” “Anna Passes On,” and “Anna’s Archive”—follow a character named Anna Mazer, inspired by Gerber’s own mother, who frequently finds herself at odds with the world around her.
In story after story, the author demonstrates a deep sensitivity to the ways in which people miscomprehend each other, even when one party is attempting to be honest. “It makes me feel desperate, as if I have no control over my life,” says Anna in one story, speaking to a pair of younger, bored neighbors who don’t care that their dog barks all day and night, eroding Anna’s sanity. In “I Don’t Believe This,” the abusive brother-in-law, fresh off an unsuccessful attempt at overdosing, arrives at the narrator’s house to ask, “[C]an’t you treat me like regular old me; can’t you ask me to come in and have dinner with you? I’m not a monster. Can’t anyone, anyone, be nice to me?” In the absence of sensational, dramatic events, such vulnerability, which is so rarely understood or reciprocated, forms the nucleus around which many of these ripped-from-life stories circle. Whether they’re longtime fans or are discovering Gerber for the first time, readers will take much from this collection, which feels like not only the culmination of a long career but of a long life.
A book of consistently arresting and engaging stories about family life.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781963846539
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Sagging Meniscus Press
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A deliciously dramatic look at how one woman’s past influences her future.
A happily engaged woman is pulled back to her hometown—and her first love—when tragedy strikes.
Billie Wright is living her dream, running a thriving fertility clinic in New York City and engaged to a wonderful trauma surgeon named Dean. Her happily-ever-after meant giving up her life in Wisconsin, where she left behind many friends as well as her high school sweetheart, Mick. Although they’d been deeply in love, when Billie’s ambition pulled her away from home and toward the city, Mick couldn’t handle either the distance or her busy schedule. Billie has finally moved on from that heartbreak—but then she receives a phone call from Mick, the first communication between them in years. Her best friend, Erin, died in a car accident, leaving behind an 11-year-old daughter, Phoebe. Now Billie must return home to help sort Erin’s affairs and provide some kind of comfort to Phoebe while grieving the loss of her best friend. Of course, being back home also means being in close contact with Mick. Their feelings for each other may not have ever gone away, and their proximity leads to big decisions for Billie. Can she ever reconcile her current life in Manhattan with her past in Wisconsin? And which one will be her future? Giffin knows how to do drama, and she ratchets up the stakes with every page as she continues to reveal new obstacles for Billie. The ending wraps up quite neatly, but the nostalgia-filled ride is full of twists and turns that will keep readers flipping the pages.
A deliciously dramatic look at how one woman’s past influences her future.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780593600320
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
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