Old Crimes
and Other Stories
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
From a New York Times bestselling author ("One of our wisest storytellers"), a story collection that is funny and tragic in equal measure, about crimes large and small (Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers).
Beloved author Jill McCorkle offers an intimate look at the moments when a person’s life changes forever. A woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband’s commentary. A telephone lineman strains to communicate with his family even as he feels pushed aside in a digital world. And a young couple buys a confessional booth for fun, only to discover the cost of honesty.
Moving and unforgettable, the stories in Old Crimes capture moments of great intensity, longing, and affection.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this satisfying collection from McCorkle (Hieroglyphics), characters attempt to bridge gender, political, and generational divides in hopes of coming to terms with a world where "evil and violent things had been happening since the beginning of time." In "Commandments," a group of women who were dumped by the same man get together regularly at a café and trade stories about their former beau. When their free-spirited younger server, Candy, hears them dishing about the unnamed man (whom they claim had "perfected the art of ruining women"), Candy offers unexpected wisdom. In "The Last Station," a recently widowed woman lugs a cross from one end of her yard to the other, simulating Jesus's plight while airing grievances big and small—the rise of white nationalists, drama at her book club—to a shocked audience of neighbors. The standout "Sparrow" finds a newly divorced mother befriending an older woman at her child's little league games who provides the validation the mother needs regarding her children's well-being. Though the collection feels somewhat repetitive, McCorkle serves up plenty of humor and heartache each time she weaves a tale of interconnected relationships, and often pushes her stories toward empathetic and surprising climaxes. McCorkle fans will gobble this up.
