by Hester Kaplan (2014)
Masterfully written and emotionally packed, the stories that make up Unravished, the new collection from award-winning author Hester Kaplan, seduce and startle, and remind us of the shifting ways we choose to narrate our own lives.
Patti Callahan Henry
Annabelle has finally made peace with the loss of her beloved husband. Until she finds out he wasn't alone when he died. When she shows up on Sophie Parker's doorstep full of painful questions, both women must confront their intertwining pasts and find the courage to face the truth.
Evie Wyld
"From one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists, a stunningly insightful, emotionally powerful new novel about an outsider haunted by an inescapable past: a story of loneliness and survival, guilt and loss, and the power of forgiveness. Jake Whyte is living on her own in an old farmhouse on a craggy British island, a place of ceaseless rains and battering winds. Her disobedient collie, Dog, and a flock of sheep are her sole companions, which is how she wanted it to be. But every few nights something--or someone--picks off one of the sheep and sounds a new deep pulse of terror. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, rumors of an obscure, formidable beast. And there is also Jake's past--hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, held in the silences about her family and the scars that stripe her back--a past that threatens to break into the present. With exceptional artistry and empathy, All the Birds, Singing reveals an isolated life in all its struggles and stubborn hopes, unexpected beauty, and hard-won redemption"--
Jakob Wassermann
"Alexander Herzog, a young writer, goes to Vienna to escape his debts and a failed love affair. There he is pursued by book-loving Ganna: giddy, girlish, clumsy, eccentric, and wild. Dazzled and unnerved by her devotion to him, and attracted to the large dowry offered by her wealthy father, he thinks he can mold Ganna into what he wants. But no one can control her troubling passions. As their marriage starts to self-destruct, Herzog will discover that he can never escape her. Posthumously published in 1934 and based on Wassermann's own ruinous marriage, My Marriage is a tragic masterpiece that unfolds in shocking detail. This story of rare intensity and drama is now brought to English readers in a powerful translation by Michael Hofmann. "--
Doris Brett
Nine stories explore common childhood anxieties and fears about such subjects as nightmares, new babies, going to the hospital, starting school, sickness, divorce, and death.