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From the author of National Book Award finalist American Salvage comes a dazzling and suspenseful new story collection.
Named by the Guardian as one of our top ten writers of rural noir, Bonnie Jo Campbell is a keen observer of life and trouble in rural America, and her working-class protagonists can be at once vulnerable, wise, cruel, and funny. The strong but flawed women of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters must negotiate a sexually charged atmosphere as they love, honor, and betray one another against the backdrop of all the men in their world. Such richly fraught mother-daughter relationships can be lifelines, anchors, or they can sink a woman like a stone.
In "My Dog Roscoe," a new bride becomes obsessed with the notion that her dead ex-boyfriend has returned to her in the form of a mongrel. In "Blood Work, 1999," a phlebotomist's desire to give away everything to the needy awakens her own sensuality. In "Home to Die," an abused woman takes revenge on her bedridden husband. In these fearless and darkly funny tales about women and those they love, Campbell's spirited American voice is at its most powerful.
"Starred Review. Following critical acclaim for her novel Once upon a River, Campbell tells bittersweet stories of unbearable heartache, sadness, and sometimes love. She once explained to an interviewer that she wants to look honestly at whatever event is unfolding, and she has delivered that truthfulness in the stories in this exhilarating collection." - Library Journal
"[T]hough this new batch traverses similar territory instead of, perhaps, something new, most of the stories succeed so thoroughly that it's hard not to think: if it's not broke, don't fix it." - Publishers Weekly
"A fine showcase for this talented writer's ability to mingle penetrating character studies with quietly scathing depictions of hard-pressed lives." - Kirkus
This information about Mothers, Tell Your Daughters was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: John Campbell
Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of six works of fiction, including American Salvage, finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Once Upon a River, a national bestseller. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, AWP's Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize, she lives outside Kalamazoo, Michigan, with donkeys.
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