Female Trouble - by Antonya Nelson (Paperback)

About the Book

The stories in "Female Trouble" shine with Nelson's characteristic sense of humor, her clean, powerful prose, and her skill at bringing to life the emotional undercurrents that shape lives and relationships.

Book Synopsis

Female Trouble features thirteen wise, funny, and startlingly perceptive stories about the vagaries and revelations of womanhood. Named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best writers of her generation, Antonya Nelson explores the broad notion of family from myriad angles in Female Trouble. Set in the vividly rendered Midwest, these moving stories are dark and honest portraits of people in moral quandaries, gray areas, unclear circumstances -- from the three-timing thirty-year-old man of the title story to the divorced mother of a turbulent teen in "Incognito" to the sexually adventurous daughter of an adulterous mother in "Stitches." With Female Trouble, Nelson has created a cast of memorable characters who reveal us to ourselves with disturbing clarity and conscience.

Review Quotes

Carmela Ciuraru Newsday Precise, perceptive, and exceedingly funny.

Dave Eggers San Francisco Chronicle Any lover of realistic narrative fiction about actual and unglamorous people will be greatly rewarded by the work of Antonya Nelson.

Frederick Busch, The New York Times Book Review These are serious stories, sensual and dark, with much at risk for the reader and, one imagines, the writer...Female Trouble is the work of a strong writer who sees both panoramically and with a powerfully close focus.

Lynna Williams Chicago Tribune These are precise and acutely knowing stories, written by a woman who understands the potential of both female trouble and the short story form.