Old Ladies

The stories in Nancy Huddleston Packer’s new collection center on women of a certain age. They are widows, divorcees, the happily married, an artist, a cleaning woman, a professor, the leisurely rich, and the working poor. Whatever their life condition, all the protagonists are decidedly individual. Some are feisty, some shy, some gentle, some ornery, some who know exactly who they are, and some who are seeking to find out. And almost all discover something a little unsettling that changes their sense of themselves, for better or worse. Praise for the stories of Nancy Huddleston Packer “Packer offers nine plainspoken, warmhearted and wryly observed stories. The individual entries are so closely connected we might be reading a novel.…They sparkle with wit and irony.” —Publishers Weekly, reviewing Jealous-Hearted Me “The stories examine the quiet violence of everyday life, tracing the emotional tightropes we all learn to walk, and the nets we dive into as we fall.…The characters in Packer’s stories go about the quiet heroism of simply being human.” —The New York Times, reviewing The Women Who Walk “In My Father’s House is a real find.…Packer’s work is full of sympathy and perceptiveness about the way people behave.” —San Jose Mercury News, reviewing In My Father’s House “The language of these stories is superb in its precision, conveying a restless eye for people and their telling gestures.…Each character etched by the author…is so devastatingly recognizable.” —The Birmingham News, reviewing Small Moments