Advance praise

“This is a beautiful work. A lifetime is gathered in these elegant and deeply moving stories.”

—Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records

"I was a convert to Natalie Southworth's fiction from the first story I read. This book is ambitious, deeply intelligent, and psychologically fearless. Natalie Southworth has a surgical eye for a specific species of suffering: the kind that comes as the cost of what we'd thought we wanted."

—Paige Cooper, author of Zolitude

"They are beautiful and shimmering stories, with so much subtlety and nuance—the tension and unease are palpable yet mostly under the surface. I picture them as Chagall paintings—beautiful constellations of images and ideas....There's a great deal of wisdom here about the lives of women and a clear-eyed lack of sentimentality."

—Alix Ohlin, author of Dual Citizens

"Natalie Southworth's stories—crisp, sometimes funny, lovely in their detail—always drive to their emotional heart. These are adventures among baffled parents, a tumult of teens, and the aged clinging to shreds of meaning. All of them brilliantly performed, all memorable."

—John Metcalf, writer and editor