Hilma Wolitzer

The uncannily relevant, deliciously clear-eyed collected stories of a critically acclaimed, award-winning “American literary treasure” (Boston Globe), ripe for rediscovery-with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout. From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer-now ninety-one years old and at the top of her game-has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who “raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height.” (Washington Post) These collected short stories-most of them originally published in magazines including Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a new story that brings her early characters into the present-are evocative of an era that still resonates deeply today. In the title story, a bystander tries to soothe a woman who seems to have cracked under the pressures of her life. And in several linked stories throughout, the relationship between the narrator and her husband unfolds in telling and often hilarious vignettes. Of their time and yet timeless, Wolitzer's stories zero in on the domestic sphere with wit, candor, grace, and an acutely observant eye. Brilliantly capturing the tensions and contradictions of daily life, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is full of heart and insight, providing a lens into a world that was often unseen at the time, and often overlooked now-reintroducing a beloved writer to be embraced by a whole new generation of readers.

Stories

Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket

Inadvertently attracting several single women while mourning the death of his adored wife, 62-year-old Edward Schuyler is profiled in a singles ad by his stepchildren and goes on several unsettling dates before a chance encounter leads to a promising new relationship. By the award-winning author of The Doctor's Daughter.

A Novel

An Available Man

A TIME 'New Books You Should Read'A People magazine 'Book of the Week'A New York Times Editors' ChoiceWith a foreword by Elizabeth Strout 'Electric: with wit, with rage, with grief, with the kind of prose that makes you both laugh and thrill to the darker, spikier emotions just barely visible under the bright surface. What a wonderful collection of stories' Lauren Groff Another day! And then another and another and another. It seemed as if it would all go on forever in that exquisitely boring and beautiful way. But of course it wouldn't; everyone knows that.In this collection, Hilma Wolitzer invites us inside the private world of domestic bliss, seen mostly through the lens of Paulie and Howard's gloriously ordinary marriage.From hasty weddings to meddlesome neighbours, ex-wives who just won't leave, to sleepless nights spent worrying about unanswered chainmail, Wolitzer captures the tensions, contradictions and unexpected detours of daily life with wit, candour and an acutely observant eye.Including stories first published in magazines in the 1960s and 1970s - alongside new writing from Wolitzer, now in her nineties - Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket reintroduces a beloved writer to be embraced by a new generation of readers.'A fascinating time capsule of womanhood, marriage and motherhood over the last century ... A fabulous book' Emma Straub 'Immensely gratifying, poignant, funny ... Breathtaking' Elizabeth Strout, from the foreword

Meg Wolitzer

This Is Your Life

Can reading change your life? Following her acclaimed novel The Doctor’s Daughter, award-winning author Hilma Wolitzer has now written a stirring tale about friendship, romance, inspiration, longing, and, especially, the love of good books. Summer Reading offers a seductive glimpse into the intersecting lives of three very different women. Summer in the Hamptons means crowded beaches during the day and lavish parties in the evening, but Angela Graves, a retired English professor, prefers the company of Gabriel García Márquez and Charlotte Brontë. Her only steady social contacts are with the women in the reading groups she leads, among them, is wealthy Lissy Snyder, a beautiful newlywed who hosts the twice-monthly meetings of the Page Turners and takes pains to hide a reading disability and her emotional neediness. Hamptons local Michelle Cutty, Lissy’s housecleaner, eavesdrops on the group’s discussions–of books and gossip–when she’s not snooping through Lissy’s closets. All three women secretly struggle with troubling personal issues that threaten the tenuous balance of their lives: Lissy, abandoned by her father in childhood, is now the unwilling stepmother of her husband’s hostile children; Michelle, resentful of the moneyed arrogance of the jet-setting, seasonal “invaders,” can’t secure a commitment from her fisherman boyfriend; and solitary, bookish Angela still bears the shameful memory of a disastrous love affair that took place long ago. As Angela encourages the Page Turners to identify with the literary heroines of Trollope and Flaubert, the books–in fact, the act of reading itself–will influence the tough choices the women must make. Stunningly evocative and richly imagined, Summer Reading explores the meaning and consequences of living an authentic life.

Summer Reading

Introducing Shirley Braverman

Silver

Hearts

Charmanter Mann aus Erstbesitz

Daphne Moss, a twenty-four-year-old California drifter, becomes involved in a love affair with a married man and takes a job serving suppers at the Palomar Arms Senior Home

In the Palomar Arms

DIVAward-winning novelist Hilma Wolitzer’s warm, true-to-life tale of a young woman on a quest for love and certainty /divDIV Daphne has never met a man who treated her as well as Kenny. The only problem is he’s married. Intoxicated by love in the afternoon, she luxuriates in his affection, but the afterglow fades when Kenny drives home to his wife and children. Although he promises Daphne that he’ll leave them, she’s not sure he will ever be able to give up his family./divDIV /divDIVAs Kenny tries to make up his mind about ending his marriage, Daphne finds herself with nothing to look forward to but their stolen hours together. She distracts herself with work in the Palomar Arms, a retirement home where decay hangs in the air. But this proximity to death will make Daphne aware that she is wasting her life. /divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Hilma Wolitzer, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection./div

Recently widowed Linda Reisman and her thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, Robin, travel from New Jersey to California to find a new home for Robin, and their experiences on the road force both women to mature quickly

Teddy Hecht must learn how to reconcile her parent's divorce and must also learn to accept her new stepmother.

Out of Love

Hilma Wolitzer’s acclaimed first novel—a powerful portrait of a family coming to terms with grief At night, Sandy feels the pain of separation most deeply. As she settles into bed, she misses the sounds Jay used to make as he emptied his pockets and undressed. She misses the way a playful nighttime conversation could become significant in an instant. She misses his touch. To fall asleep, she imagines Jay’s voice, imagines their loving exchanges—but she cannot imagine lying in his arms. Jay is in the hospital now, his body wasting away from cancer. As the disease progresses, he and Sandy try to come to terms with the fact that he will never come home again—and that his children will soon lose their father forever. Poignant and raw, Ending is a finely rendered look at love, loss, and survival. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Hilma Wolitzer, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

Ending

Niets om het lijf

Pregnant, recently widowed, and hoping for transformation, a young woman moves to Los Angeles with her teenage stepdaughter Linda has known only a few worthwhile men, and the good ones have a nasty habit of dying young. While teaching at the Newark branch of the Fred Astaire Dance Studio she meets Wright, who has a Mustang and a thirteen-year-old daughter, Robin. Soon enough Linda and Wright are married and pregnant, but just six weeks after the wedding he drops dead, leaving Linda with little besides the car and the girl. Unsure what else to do, Linda packs Robin into the Mustang and sets off for Los Angeles, toward a promise of a new and better life. Robin is surly, cynical, and addicted to junk food—in short, a typical teenager. But as Linda’s pregnancy progresses and they try to make their way in the City of Angels, this unlikely pair will forge an unexpected emotional connection. Hilma Wolitzer’s storytelling recalls the best work of Anne Tyler and Gail Godwin, and her wit shines through in this tale of improbable allegiances and contained grief. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Hilma Wolitzer, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

Tunnel of Love

Bernie only needs $99 for freedom, but he can’t make a dime Bernie Segal has a lot of normal problems—like algebra, his height, and a sister who insists he help her learn her lines for the stupid school play. But he also has a lot of not-so-normal problems, like dealing with his father’s death. His mother is about to remarry, and the thought of having a new man around the house makes Bernie sick. To get out of being at the wedding, Bernie decides to fly to Miami to live with his grandfather. All he needs is $99 for airfare—but where is he going to get the money? Bernie’s asthma means he can’t do anything strenuous, like having a paper route, so he’s forced to take lame jobs, even babysitting, to get the cash. But as the date for his great escape approaches, Bernie begins to wonder if he’s really trying to run away from the wedding and his new stepfather, or if he is running from himself. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Hilma Wolitzer, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

Wish You Were Here

After her parents’ divorce, Teddy realizes that love is not as easy as it looks In Teddy’s daydreams, the elevator is never broken and her father comes home every day. But in reality, her dad has a new home and a new wife, Shelley, who is glamorous in a way Teddy’s mother could never be. Still, Teddy holds out hope that one day her dad will come to his senses—and when she finds a shoebox full of faded love letters in the closet, she knows her mother is hoping for the same thing. In the letters, her father calls her mother “my own true love.” If Teddy can just fix her mom up a little bit, maybe her dad will realize he loves her still. But after exercise classes, a visit from the Avon lady, and a furious campaign to get her mom to stop smoking, Teddy learns that real love is far more complex than those old letters make it seem. And though her parents love and support her, Teddy’s perceptions of her family will have to change. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Hilma Wolitzer, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

In her first work of fiction in more than a decade, award-winning novelist Hilma Wolitzer brilliantly renders the intimate details of ordinary life and exposes a host of hidden truths. The Doctor’s Daughter is a haunting portrait of a woman coming to terms with her family history and the fallibility of memory. One morning, Alice Brill awakes with a sudden awareness that something is wrong. There’s a hollowness in her chest, and a sensation of dread that she can’t identify or shake. Was it something she’s done, or forgotten to do? As she scours her mind for the source of her unease, she confronts an array of disturbing possibilities. First, there is her marriage, a once vibrant relationship that now languishes stasis. Then there’s her idle, misdirected younger son, who always needs bailing out of some difficulty. Or perhaps Alice’s trepidation is caused by the loss of her career as an editor at a large publishing house, and the new path she’s paved for herself as a freelance book doctor. Or it might be the real doctor in her life: her father. Formerly one of New York’s top surgeons, he now rests in a nursing home, his mind gripped by dementia. And the Eden that was Alice’s childhood–the material benefits and reflected glory of being a successful doctor’s daughter, the romance of her parents’ famously perfect marriage–makes her own domestic life seem fatally flawed. While struggling to find the root of her restlessness, Alice is buoyed by her discovery of a talented new writer, a man who works by day as a machinist in Michigan. Soon their interactions and feelings intensify, and Alice realizes that the mystery she’s been trying to solve lies not in the present, as she had assumed, but in the past–and in the secrets of a marriage that was never as perfect as it appeared. Like the best works of Anne Tyler, Sue Miller, and Gail Godwin, The Doctor’s Daughter is private yet universal, luminous and revelatory–and marks the reemergence of a singular talent in American writing.

Hilma Wolitzer

Books

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