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Beloved author Jill McCorkle delivers a collection of masterful stories that are as complex as novels—deeply perceptive, funny, and tragic in equal measure—about crimes large and small.
Jill McCorkle, author of the New York Times bestselling Life After Life and the widely acclaimed Hieroglyphics ("One of our wryest, warmest, wisest storytellers" —Rebecca Makkai), brings us a breathtaking collection of stories that offers an intimate look at the moments when a person's life changes forever.
Old Crimes delves into the lives of characters who hold their secrets and misdeeds close, even as the past continues to reverberate over time and across generations. And despite the characters' yearnings for connection, they can't seem to tell the whole truth. In "Low Tones," a woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband's commentary. In "Lineman," a telephone lineman strains to connect to his family even as he feels pushed aside in a digital world. In "Confessional," a young couple buys a confessional booth for fun, only to discover the cost of honesty.
Profoundly moving and unforgettable, for fans of Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and Lily King, the stories in Old Crimes reveal why McCorkle has long been considered a master of the form, probing lives full of great intensity, longing and affection, and deep regret.
"McCorkle is a brilliant storyteller... Wonderfully rich and emotionally complicated stories." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] satisfying collection… McCorkle serves up plenty of humor and heartache… and often pushes her stories toward empathetic and surprising climaxes. McCorkle fans will gobble this up." ―Publishers Weekly
"Often funny, evenly darkly comic at times, McCorkle's memorable collection calls to mind Alice Munro and Charles Baxter." —Booklist
"A splendid, wide-ranging collection that once again proves McCorkle is a master of the form." ―Jenny Offill, author of Weather
"Jill McCorkle has had an extraordinary ear for the music of ordinary life since the beginning of her career, able to work with the voices we know so well to write these stories about they will not tell us, what they would rather not tell us, what they hope to tell us, what too often goes unsaid. And this collection is a new wonder." ―Alexander Chee, author of How to Write An Autobiographical Novel
"Each story here is so carefully wrought yet wildly original at the same time, deeply wedded to the real world in all its complexity and detail. It seems to me that each one contains an entire life---and often, a whole novel. What a beautiful book." ―Lee Smith, author of Silver Alert
"With her wry humor, deep understanding of human connection and disconnection, and a tremendous sense of fun, Jill McCorkle has given us another dazzling collection of stories." ―Lily King, author of Five Tuesdays in Winter
This information about Old Crimes 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.
Jill McCorkle has the distinction of having published her first two novels on the same day in 1984. Of these novels, the New York Times Book Review said: "one suspects the author of The Cheer Leader is a born novelist. With July 7th, she is also a full grown one." Since then she has published five other novels—most recently, Hieroglyphics—and four collections of short stories. Five of her books have been named New York Times notable books and four of her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories. McCorkle has received the New England Booksellers Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, the North Carolina Award for Literature and the Thomas Wolfe Prize; she was recently inducted into the NC Literary Hall of Fame. McCorkle has taught at Harvard, ...
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