Everybody Loves Somebody [Paperback]

Starred Review. From the formidable imagination of Scott (Pulitzer Prize–finalist The Manikin, etc.) comes a collection of 10 stories that stalk across the 20th century to document love and its consequences. In "Heaven and Hell," a bride and groom seal their vows with a lengthy kiss after he returns home, blind, from WWI. "The Lucite Cane" sees an elderly man navigating a slew of literal and metaphorical modern-day hazards in June 2000. A young Harlem mother abandons her daughter to join a cultlike church in "The Queen of Sheba Is Afraid of Snow." The teenage grifter at the center of "Or Else" travels from New York to Europe and steals from her benefactor. In the title story, a New York advertising executive sent upstate to finalize a contract encounters trouble on his drive home to his wife and baby. Although the characters struggle differently, they are almost all observed by a Paul Bowles–style godless eye-in-the-sky that lays bare human frailty with almost unbearable acuity; the two first-person stories, "Yip" and "Across from the Shannonso," don't convey the same gravitas. But Scott's craft can be breathtaking—and her perceptions uncanny. (Dec. 11)
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Scott's The Manikin (1996) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Various Antidotes (1994)and Arrogance (1991) were both finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award; and she is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and a Lannan Award. So it should come as no surprise that her collection of short stories is a stylish and apt depiction of everyday life. In the first story, an estranged father has made it to his daughter's wedding only to find himself trapped in the bathroom of his hotel room. In "Stumble,"a young woman labeled as easy makes her way to New York for excitement. What she finds is harsh reality. The most creative story, "Yip,"has a Broadway impresario trying to get permission to build a play around a mentally ill young boy. "He would just stand there in the spotlight, his body pressing against the empty space behind him, and then, at last, he would utter a single yip." Each of these quietly well-crafted stories takes the reader to a place or an emotion that is palpable and enlightening. And each one will leave a lasting impression. Elizabeth Dickie
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Joanna Scott's unparalleled gift for storytelling has inspired hyperbole from critics and her devoted fanbase, which includes some of the most preeminent writers of our time. But not since Various Antidotes, a finalist for the PEN/FaulknerAward, has she turned her talents toward short stories. At the seaside wedding of two lovers kept apart by the caprices of fate, a doting uncle looks on while his errant brother, father of the bride,struggles to free himself from a locked bathroom across town. A young woman arrives in Jazz Age New York with stars in her eyes and a few coins in her pocket and after a string of failed jobs, she thinks she's found salvation in a romance with her boss at a local greasy spoon but learns that her idea of herself and others'ideas of her are quite different. A bright business man seems content with all the trappings his good fortune affords, until a flat tire and a chance encounter with a couple of mechanics in the country upsets his entire view. Here Joanna Scott offers a group of tales that celebrate her acknowledged sense of character, plot and her gift for capturing the breathtaking tension even in life's quietest moments.

Joanna Scott is the author of 8 previous books, inc. The Manikin, a Pulitzer Prize finalist as well as Various Antidotes and Arrogance, which were both finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lannan Award, she lives with her family in upstate New York.