My Name Is Your Name & Other Stories

Kerry Langan's warm and generous third short story collection, My Name Is Your Name, includes stories of women at all ages—from little girls to old women whose long lives are now only fleeting memories. A six-year old girl wanders an amusement park alone; a teenager tries to balance the loyalty and shame she feels toward her schizophrenic sister; a young woman stubbornly makes a home for herself in an insular fishing village for reasons that elude her and those around her; a newlywed touring houses with her husband doesn't see an exciting future, rather unsettling glimpses of her own mortality. Finding unsuspected reservoirs of strength and purpose, girls and women negotiate young love, their first jobs, single motherhood, the death of friends, infidelity, the illness of spouses, memories of the Holocaust, and the indignities, anguishes, and gifts of age and aging in ways that are sharp, funny, poignant, and often quirky. Langan draws us into a world in which the very young blunder but also face truths that sometimes elude adults and the middle-aged and elderly turn to their younger selves to guide them in an ambiguous, challenging present. We come away encouraged and replenished—more ready to face many of the same issues ourselves.