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Two young women who've dated the same man navigate love, destiny, loss, and choice in this powerful debut.
Anna Riley and Anne Cavanaugh have had a lover in common, but it's not until a pivotal moment in one of their lives that their paths unforgettably converge. "Beautiful and connected in unexpected ways...." (Jodi Angel), the linked stories in So Much a Part of You "read like whispered secrets." (Scott Nadelson)
Peter Herring was the center of Anne's universe in college, and now, a few years later, he's become the center of Anna's, and merely a minor player in his ex-girlfriend's world. That is, until Peter and Anna are invited into Anne's parents' home to visit with her dying mother, and he finds himself drawn back into her orbit. Years later, when her own mother is dying, Anna will find herself yearning to reach out to Anne, with whom she had shared such a brief but intimate bond, and find solace in that moment from long ago.
Perspective evolves with time, and so with time, what Peter means to each woman-as lover, as friend, as connection to the past-also evolves. Through exploring Anne's and Anna's ties to Peter and unfolding the narratives of the people who weave meaningfully in and out of their lives, Polly Dugan reveals the power of family secrets, the ripple effects of her characters' emotional choices, and how poignantly their intertwined relationships shape who they are and how they love.
Possessing that rare ability to write the sweep of emotion with tenderness, Polly Dugan invites readers to witness the moments that define her characters - the moments that come back full circle to comfort or haunt them, or both. So Much a Part of You will break your heart and still have you asking for more.
"Starred Review. Strong characterization and acute rendering of settings... Although short story fans are a natural audience for this promising debut, it will also appeal to general fiction readers." - Booklist
"Dugan's writing flows well and with thoughtfulness as she explores love, loss, and friendship through the three main characters and their families." - Publishers Weekly
"With decisive economy and the dramatic immediacy lent by her use of the present tense, Dugan's powerful stories present a fast-paced, cohesive, and satisfying read." - Library Journal
"Though some of these stories work fine on their own, most benefit from the context provided by the others, the development of character and the complexities of relationships from one to the next.Not surprisingly, Dugan is at work on a novel, which readers will eagerly anticipate after reading this promising collection." - Kirkus
"This is what short story should be: exact and faithful invocations, full of nerve and stranded emotion, which leave eddying waves of thought and strangeness that linger long after the covers are closed shut." - Robert Olmstead
"Polly Dugan makes the greatest deal the best of literature can offer - she will be honest, completely bare, and deliver a reader wholly into the secret world of her character's empathy. " - Alan Heathcock
This information about So Much a Part of You 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.
Polly Dugan lives in Portland, Oregon, and is a reader at Tin House magazine. A former employee of Powell's Books, she is an alumna of the Tin House Writer's Workshop. Dugan's first published story, "A Matter of Time," was Line Zero's Spring 2012 Literary Contest Winner, "Masquerades" (as "One At a Time"), was Narrative's Story of the Week (December 2012), and "Kitten Season" was an Honorable Mention Recipient in Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers (August 2009).
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