The writer's fourth collection of stories explores, with a touch of surrealism, the unconscious desires or fears inherent in relationships
Jean McGarry has been praised for her "deft, comic, and devastatingly precise portraits" (New York Times Book Review) and as "a writer who honors the human condition" (Baltimore Sun). In her new collection of stories, Dream Date, she focuses her skills as a "gifted observer" (Publishers Weekly) on the delicate boundary that separates the real from the ethereal states we drift into and out of as we try to make sense of our relationships, romantic and otherwise, with the other sex. Funny and haunting in equal measure—and suffused with a hint of the surreal—McGarry's stories explore the confusions, contradictions, and calamities of the modern relationship: in "Paris," a woman tracks down her wayward husband in the City of Lights and ends up having a meeting of minds with his mistress that gives great satisfaction to both women; in "Moon, June," a woman stalks the wardrobe of a wealthy socialite in a consignment shop, opening up a world of polymorphous delight and fashion envy; and in "The Secret of His Sleep," a man wakes up after forty years to a reality that is at once strangely familiar and completely unexpected. In these wry fictions, real-world problems often have solutions fashioned with the stunning clarity and logic of a dream.
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Dream Date: Stories
The writer's fourth collection of stories explores, with a touch of surrealism, the unconscious desires or fears inherent in relationships
Jean McGarry has been praised for her "deft, comic, and devastatingly precise portraits" (New York Times Book Review) and as "a writer who honors the human condition" (Baltimore Sun). In her new collection of stories, Dream Date, she focuses her skills as a "gifted observer" (Publishers Weekly) on the delicate boundary that separates the real from the ethereal states we drift into and out of as we try to make sense of our relationships, romantic and otherwise, with the other sex. Funny and haunting in equal measure—and suffused with a hint of the surreal—McGarry's stories explore the confusions, contradictions, and calamities of the modern relationship: in "Paris," a woman tracks down her wayward husband in the City of Lights and ends up having a meeting of minds with his mistress that gives great satisfaction to both women; in "Moon, June," a woman stalks the wardrobe of a wealthy socialite in a consignment shop, opening up a world of polymorphous delight and fashion envy; and in "The Secret of His Sleep," a man wakes up after forty years to a reality that is at once strangely familiar and completely unexpected. In these wry fictions, real-world problems often have solutions fashioned with the stunning clarity and logic of a dream.
The writer's fourth collection of stories explores, with a touch of surrealism, the unconscious desires or fears inherent in relationships
Jean McGarry has been praised for her "deft, comic, and devastatingly precise portraits" (New York Times Book Review) and as "a writer who honors the human condition" (Baltimore Sun). In her new collection of stories, Dream Date, she focuses her skills as a "gifted observer" (Publishers Weekly) on the delicate boundary that separates the real from the ethereal states we drift into and out of as we try to make sense of our relationships, romantic and otherwise, with the other sex. Funny and haunting in equal measure—and suffused with a hint of the surreal—McGarry's stories explore the confusions, contradictions, and calamities of the modern relationship: in "Paris," a woman tracks down her wayward husband in the City of Lights and ends up having a meeting of minds with his mistress that gives great satisfaction to both women; in "Moon, June," a woman stalks the wardrobe of a wealthy socialite in a consignment shop, opening up a world of polymorphous delight and fashion envy; and in "The Secret of His Sleep," a man wakes up after forty years to a reality that is at once strangely familiar and completely unexpected. In these wry fictions, real-world problems often have solutions fashioned with the stunning clarity and logic of a dream.
Jean McGarry teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Ocean State is her eighth book of fiction. Dream Date, Gallagher’s Travels, Home at Last, The Very Rich Hours, and Airs of Providence have also been published by Johns Hopkins. Her short stories have appeared in, among other publications, The New Yorker, The Yale Review, Boulevard, and The Southwest Review.
Table of Contents
HISAmong the PhilistinesThe Thin ManLandingThe Secret of His SleepHERSBody and SoulThe MaestroMoon, JuneBetter Than RealPartly HimLavareParisThe Last TimeAcknowledgments
What People are Saying About This
Max Apple
Jean McGarry's stories are stylistic riffs, surprising in every sentence—and those sentences, lively and comic, go deep. She's a real virtuoso.
Grace Paley
I have always loved Jean McGarry's books for their acuteness and generosity—an unusual combination. And I've been waiting impatiently for new work and here it is; surprising in its riskiness, humor, and smart as ever.
Alice McDermott
At the conclusion of each of Jean McGarry's marvelous stories, the reader is faced with a delightful dilemma: to go back to the beginning and read it again, or to begin the next. The precision and complexity of each tale invite rereading. But each story's inventiveness, its droll wisdom, makes us look forward to discovering just what Ms. McGarry will come up with next.
From the Publisher
I have always loved Jean McGarry's books for their acuteness and generosity—an unusual combination. And I've been waiting impatiently for new work and here it is; surprising in its riskiness, humor, and smart as ever.—Grace Paley
At the conclusion of each of Jean McGarry's marvelous stories, the reader is faced with a delightful dilemma: to go back to the beginning and read it again, or to begin the next. The precision and complexity of each tale invite rereading. But each story's inventiveness, its droll wisdom, makes us look forward to discovering just what Ms. McGarry will come up with next.—Alice McDermott
Jean McGarry's stories are stylistic riffs, surprising in every sentence—and those sentences, lively and comic, go deep. She's a real virtuoso.—Max Apple
