Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket
Stories
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4.7 • 10 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
An NPR Best Book of the Year * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * An Electric Literature Best Short Story Collection of the Year * Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize
The "often hilarious and always compassionate" (New York Times Book Review) collected stories of a critically acclaimed, award-winning "American literary treasure" (Boston Globe), now in paperback-with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout.
From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer-now ninety-one years old and at the top of her game-has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who "raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height." (Washington Post) These collected short stories-most of them originally published in magazines including Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a new story that brings her early characters into the present-are evocative of an era that still resonates deeply today.
In the title story, a bystander tries to soothe a woman who seems to have cracked under the pressures of her life. And in several linked stories throughout, the relationship between the narrator and her husband unfolds in telling and often hilarious vignettes. Of their time and yet timeless, Wolitzer's stories zero in on the domestic sphere with wit, candor, grace, and an acutely observant eye. Brilliantly capturing the tensions and contradictions of daily life, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is full of heart and insight, providing a lens into a world that was often unseen at the time, and often overlooked now-reintroducing a beloved writer to be embraced by a whole new generation of readers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this sage collection of stories, many of which were published in the 1960s and '70s, Wolitzer (An Available Man) considers love, marriage, and motherhood. The title story is narrated by a woman who regrets her inability to help when she sees a woman with two children having a nervous breakdown in a supermarket. In "Mrs. X," a housewife receives a note signed from an "anonymous friend" hinting that her husband is having an affair and grows angry at the friend for interfering in their lives. In "Overtime," a husband and wife allow the former's needy ex to move in with them temporarily—with unsurprisingly uproarious results. In the affecting "Mother," a woman who has just given birth worries that something is wrong with her premature baby and leaves the maternity ward to search the hospital for her. Several of the stories revolve around a New York couple, Paulette and Howard; in a contemporary story, the couple must cope with the coronavirus pandemic: "We were going to have a Zoom meeting, whatever that was," Paulette narrates about a March 2020 book club meeting, her memories undercut with a wistfulness over the devastation that would come in the months to follow. Throughout, Wolitzer captures the feel of each moment with characters who charm with their honesty. The result is a set of engaging time capsules. This review has been updated to more accurately reflect the plot of the story "Mrs. X."
