Clare and her oldest friend from college had been planning this visit for the past three months. But only yesterday, her arms full of towels and pillows, Clare realized that it was too soon for her husband's study to become a guest room. First she needed to talk through her anguish and anger at finding him there, slumped over his desk beside the empty vials of pills, finding his folded note that said "Clare."
A widower finds his stolen car and begins a relationship with the thief; a woman whose sisters levy accusations against their dying father wonders why he chose them, not her; a divorcing couple celebrates a final beach weekend with their closest friends.
In fifteen stories of loss and recovery, including two Pushcart Prize winners, Pamela Painter cements her status as a master of the contemporary story.
Pamela Painter is the author of three story collections, Wouldn't You Like to Know, Getting to Know the Weather, which won the GLCA Award for First Fiction, and The Long and Short of It. She is the co-author of What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper's, Kenyon Review, Mid-American Review, Ploughshares, Quick Fiction, and in numerous anthologies, such as Sudden Fiction, Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Forward and MicroFiction. She has won three Pushcart Prizes and Agni Review's John Cheever Award for Fiction. Painter lives in Boston and teaches in the writing, literature and publishing program at Emerson College.
About the Author: Pamela Painter is the author of three story collections, Wouldn't You Like to Know, Getting to Know the Weather, which won the GLCA Award for First Fiction, and The Long and Short of It. She is also the co-author of What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper's, Kenyon Review, Mid-American Review, Ploughshares, and Quick Fiction, among others and in numerous anthologies, such as Sudden Fiction, Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Forward and MicroFiction. She has received grants from The Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts, has won three Pushcart Prizes and Agni Review's The John Cheever Award for Fiction. Painter's stories have been presented on stage by Word Theatre, Stage Turner, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre. A recent prize-winning story was recorded on a Norton CD titled "Love Hurts." Painter lives in Boston and teaches in the Writing, Literature and Publishing Program at Emerson College.
