Still Talking - by Lore Segal (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The eagerly awaited follow-up to Ladies' Lunch, beloved New Yorker writer Lore Segal's final story collection returns with further tales of the old friends who have loved and lunched together for over 40 years.

"Segal writes with welcome clarity about life's final years, and if her characters are not always as wise as they think they are, Segal eyes them all with the unsentimental wisdom of a life spent writing wondrous stories and essays, a career spent telling the truth."--Slate

Lore Segal is a master of the short story, and this collection shows her in peak form. Profound, dark, and often hilarious, Segal portrays her characters foibles, eccentricities and passions with great compassion and exactness, as they grapple with life, aging, and each other.

Readers of Ladies Lunch will recognize the educated, urbane nonagenarian women who have been friends for a lifetime, as they tackle aging's affronts with wit, grace and resourcefulness.

With an Introduction by Vivian Gornick

Review Quotes

"Mysterious, mesmerizing ..." --The New York Times

"Segal writes with welcome clarity about life's final years, and if her characters are not always as wise as they think they are, Segal eyes them all with the unsentimental wisdom of a life spent writing wondrous stories and essays, a career spent telling the truth." -- Slate

"Reading Ladies' Lunch, one can only be thankful that Segal has not 'thrown away' her people or her memories, which have given us this indispensable road map of our final journey." -- Ann Levin, The Forward

"Gemlike stories from a master of the form." -- Kirkus Reviews, STARRED Review
"Segal brings her rapier wit to this intelligent collection...Segal's unfailing ear and light comedic touch belie the momentous, existential nature of her subject matter. This is funny and moving in equal measure." --Publishers Weekly

"Lore Segal celebrates with humor and grace the friendships that stand the test of time and the particular eccentricities of aging...Ladies' Lunch, is a delightful example of Segal's quick and clever wit."--Shelf Awareness

"These witty, sparky tales of ninetysomething Manhattanite ladies who lunch capture the everyday stuff of ageing." --The Times

"We are lucky to have this piercing collection..."--Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Segal received the American Academy Arts and Letters Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The O'Henry Prize and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. Her work appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, The New Republic, and numerous other publications. In 2023, Segal was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Vivian Gornick is a writer and critic whose work has received two National Book Critics Circle Award nominations and been collected in The Best American Essays 2014. Her works include the memoirs Fierce Attachments--ranked the best memoir of the last fifty years by the New York Times--The Odd Woman and the City, and Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader, as well as the classic text on writing, The Situation and the Story.