Darling?

Description

perfect stories from an American star-apparent, full of grace, wit and love Pert, tart, often perfect stories from the eastern seaboard of the USA, to appeal to smart, sly readers of Lorrie Moore, Amy Bloom, Melissa Bank, Jane Smiley et al. Every one of these stories is knowing, wry, sad, funny, engaging, full of unexpected detail, perceptive in the extreme. Heidi Jon Schmidt has an ear for dialogue, but more so for what is unsaid, for the huge chasms of unspoken communication in everyday life. Her heroes are the ever so slightly left of centre misfits, who are certain there is something missing from their lives but can't quite work out what. Whether her subject is an 11-year-old girl grieving for her dog, a middle-aged man whose wife has left him and must return to live with his mother, an elderly lady whose husband has Alzheimers, a 90-year-old revered poet, a group of talentless but wildly enthusiastic would-be novelists, she invests them with a credibility that makes one care passionately for them.

Heidi Jon Schmidt lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she teaches at Provincetown Arts Centre.

'Here is that rare and welcome book about love that's less concerned with how we find love than what we do with it, a book that deals not in moments of passion, but in moments of grace, a book about the frustrating, hilarious, embarrassing, transcendental business of living with love. Schmidt's stories are filled with delightful wit, spell-binding feeling and an emotional intelligence.' Peter Ho Davies, author of The Ugliest House in the World 'In spite of their missteps and misgivings, Heidi Jon Schmidt's characters continue to search for love and understanding. These stories, like the human condition they expose, are poignant, profound, and, very, very funny.' Hester Kaplan