First published 1986
A woman waits for her brother to come home from the mental hospital. She knows his release will change everything again. In eight connected stories, Patricia Henley follows different women through moments that crack their lives open. One woman struggles through labor while her marriage falls apart. A mother watches her teenager spin out of control. Another woman sits in group therapy sessions, trying to make sense of what went wrong. Parents divide their belongings and their children. A family moves to a new house but cannot escape old problems. Each woman faces the gap between what she hoped for and what she got. These stories show how ordinary people survive when their carefully built lives start to crumble. Henley writes about the weight of family obligations and the cost of caring for people who cannot care for themselves. The women in these stories do not find easy answers, but they find ways to keep going.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, slice-of-life
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
128 pages · Paperback · Graywolf Pr
Content warnings: mental-illness