Ways to Spend the Night

by Pamela Painter

Overview

Clare and her oldest friend from college had been planning this visit for the past three months. But only yesterday, her arms full of towels and pillows, Clare realized that it was too soon for her husband's study to become a guest room. First she needed to talk through her anguish and anger at finding him there, slumped over his desk beside the empty vials of pills, finding his folded note that said "Clare."

A widower finds his stolen car and begins a relationship with the thief; a woman whose sisters levy accusations against their dying father wonders why he chose them, not her; a divorcing couple celebrates a final beach weekend with their closest friends.

In fifteen stories of loss and recovery, including two Pushcart Prize winners, Pamela Painter cements her status as a master of the contemporary story.

Pamela Painter is the author of three story collections, Wouldn't You Like to Know, Getting to Know the Weather, which won the GLCA Award for First Fiction, and The Long and Short of It. She is the co-author of What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper's, Kenyon Review, Mid-American Review, Ploughshares, Quick Fiction, and in numerous anthologies, such as Sudden Fiction, Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Forward and MicroFiction. She has won three Pushcart Prizes and Agni Review's John Cheever Award for Fiction. Painter lives in Boston and teaches in the writing, literature and publishing program at Emerson College.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938126352
Publisher:	Engine Books
Publication date:	01/12/2016
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Pamela Painter is the author of three story collections, Wouldn't You Like to Know, Getting to Know the Weather, which won the GLCA Award for First Fiction, and The Long and Short of It. She is also the co-author of What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper's, Kenyon Review, Mid-American Review, Ploughshares, and Quick Fiction, among others and in numerous anthologies, such as Sudden Fiction, Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Forward and MicroFiction. She has received grants from The Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts, has won three Pushcart Prizes and Agni Review's The John Cheever Award for Fiction. Painter's stories have been presented on stage by Word Theatre, Stage Turner, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre. A recent prize-winning story was recorded on a Norton CD titled "Love Hurts." Painter lives in Boston and teaches in the Writing, Literature and Publishing Program at Emerson College.

Editorial Reviews

01/04/2016
Pushcart Prize–winner Painter's fourth collection of stories (after Wouldn't You Like to Know) plumbs the depths and consequences of interpersonal relationships and the ebb and flow of passion, longing, and regret. In "Reading in His Wake," the poignant opening tale, a dying husband and his wife, both voracious literature lovers, read in bed "companionably together, and companionably apart" until his final breath. A missing wedding ring is just the beginning of the end of a married couple's relationship in "Fenced In; Fenced Out" and, in the same vein of disillusionment, a mother returns home to a family gathering celebrating a marriage she's lost hope for in "Slides." Whether they inhabit abandoned summer houses or cottages on the Cape, none of Painter's characters can escape the angst of a deteriorating relationship or the disbelief of sudden betrayal. Most of Painter's 16 emotionally resonant tales are set in the Boston area and no longer than six pages in length, and each briefly carries the heft of a larger issue, whether it be death, divorce, or "the mystery of mistakes." Agent: Colleen Mohyde, Doe Coover Agency. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly