Five Tuesdays in Winter

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She held herself straight, upright, but inside she was bent with grief...Something about her movements...the way she walked around the garden, touching petals and branches, as if she could rid some of her sadness on them.’ - from South King has portrayed effectively and compassionately with well-crafted prose, evocative descriptions, and spot-on dialogue.”— New York Journal of Books When in the Dordogne leaves a lonely boy in the care of two college students while his parents spend the summer in France. His caretakers aren't all that concerned about the rules of the wealthy enclave where the boy lives, but instead of chaos, their free spirits engender love. These are stories of outsiders finding their people, of new perspectives, and they place King—already one of our most poignant and moving contemporary novelists—among Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, and Mary Gaitskill as one of our great short-story writers as well.” — Vogue, “Best Books to Read This Fall” Having loved Lily King’s Writers & Lovers I was looking forward to reading more of her work and I can happily say (or write) that her first-ever collection of short stories did not disappoint. More often than not I find short story collections to be a mixed bag (with some good ones, some meh ones, and even a bad egg or two). But, I found myself drawn to all of the stories in Five Tuesdays in Winter. While the stories focus on characters who don’t always have much in common (be it their age, the time when and/or place where they are living, their fears or desires) their narratives are characterised by a bittersweet tone that will elicit feelings of nostalgia in the reader (regardless of whether the

Five Tuesdays in Winter” I also thought was one of the better stories, of a distant and somewhat off-putting bookstore owner who is nevertheless passionate about books and his daughter: “He loved her so much his heart often felt shredded by it.” Creative” I thought was a four star story, featuring a 14-year-old girl who was (as was King) a nanny for a summer, reading Jane Eyre, living (like The Madwoman in the Attic) in the attic, who overcomes a bad sexual experience to gain some (surprisingly!) solid sense of herself. Marie-Claude becomes frustrated when Flo corrects her on the details of her “Austrian ghost story.” She realizes her ex-husband must have told Flo the story, but left out a detail key to Marie-Claude’s experience. Have you ever felt that one of your own experiences or stories was co-opted by someone else after you shared it? Are there family stories in your life that you feel a sense of ownership over, even if you were not there to experience them? An extraordinary novel… King beautifully documents every aspect of Casey’s character. Casey’s insights into the world of writing are fascinating and often humorous… The prose [is] linguistically sophisticated, but clean and uncluttered.”— Midwest Book ReviewA down-to-earth saga of an extremely bright and likable single woman wrestling with sexual desires, emotional dreads… An engaging portrait of a woman confronting modern hardships.”— Associated Press A story of a girl who moves to live with his brother to left her wrong choice behind, And her friendship with their neighbor, a single mom. i finished this story, looked at the cursor blinking below this subheading for a minute, and gave up on all of it. i don't know how to engage with this, really.

King’s gift is to suspend the reader, to make the wait for resolution fascinating.”— Minneapolis Star Tribune Romance isn’t the point for Casey. Love is the gravy; words are the filet. Finding a way to build a life around work she loves, finding a way to support herself as a writer — this is the line connecting all three corners of the love triangle at the heart of this novel.”— New York Times Book Review, Group Text Book Club There are other spot-on stories that also resonate: in “Creature”, a young teen babysitter whose homelife is in shambles “tries on” the heroine roles of novels such as Jane Eyre, only to realize that the hero she cast in her fantasies is really a bad guy who has little more than his own interests at heart. In “When in the Dordogne”, a young teenage boy – an accidental latecomer from a wealthy family-- finds himself in the care of two college sophomores while his parents travel abroad—and finds himself in the process. In “Hotel Seattle”, a gay man who a long time ago had a crush on his college roommate meets up with him years later in a surprisingly painful encounter. The visit has unveiled the mystery of this man’s devastating ambivalence years ago, but she could have done without his but-for-the-grace-of-God relief as he hugged her goodbye.” In North Sea, Oda has saved up for two years to be able to take her sullen 12-year-old daughter on a short holiday after her husband, Hanne’s father died unexpectedly. She hopes they will talk.

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There are nine other short stories. All are exceptionally well written. I didn’t want to stop reading any of them. Great stories — great voices of the characters - messy relationships, sharp humor, psychological acuity..... A knowing look at the pursuit of a life in the arts, with a protagonist you’ll root for.”— Marie Claire She has three children and one of them only a baby, she tries to find some time to write. In meanwhile a strange man shows up at her door with her unfinished book.

In general, I think this is a good collection, with good writing, though I think the writing she does from the perspective of women is far superior to her stories from the perspective of men. Her weakest story for me is a story of a gay man, that feels just off. King has created a woman on the cusp of personal fulfillment and strong enough to stand on her own, someone akin to Sally Rooney’s Frances in Conversations with Friends… But King also situates Casey inside a variation of the which-lover-will-she-choose framework of, say, Nancy Meyers’s film Something’s Gotta Give… The novel is a meditation on trying itself: to stay alive, to love, to care. That point feels so fresh, so powerfully diametrically opposed to the readily available cynicism we’ve been feasting on… King wants us to keep trying, through whatever means necessary, to beat the odds.”— Boston GlobeKing follows five critically acclaimed novels, most recently Euphoria and Writers & Lovers, with her first collection of short stories. Ann Patchett raved that the new offering ‘moved me, inspired me, thrilled me. It filled up every chamber of my heart. I loved this book.’”— The Millions (“Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2021 Book Preview”) Praise for Writers & Lovers: Truth to be told, this book is not really my favourite. I found it a bit challenging to finish it since the author went to a great length in conveying each character's daily interminable dread. It took a lot of mental capacity to comprehend everyone's stories. Not to mention, despite the tenderness, these anthologies are also dark, complex and fraught with drama. I liked all ten stories, some more than others, of course. “Waiting for Charlie,” about a man visiting his comatose granddaughter, stole my heart. Another favorite is “Hotel Seattle,” about a gay college kid who has a secret crush on his straight roommate and later gets to catch up with him. I just realized I could keep naming favorites; god, talk about poignant! All of them! They made me pause and think. One story, “Mansard,” sent me to Google to find out what a mansard roof is. I got lost in the pictures! I always love it when a story teaches me a little thing or two. A] dazzling new collection . . . Though the protagonists range from a young girl to a middle-aged gay man to a gruff nonagenarian grandfather, the stories share certain characteristics; King is a master at conveying through subtle description the small, painful, bumbling moments of life and the awkwardness of human interactions . . . A series of beautifully written character studies brimming with insight into the human condition.” — Library Journal, starred review

We have characters who are left vulnerable by spouses who have left them or have experienced a loss, mental health crisis, alcoholism, or crudity. seems like it might be a BOOKSTORE title story about profoundly sad characters that ends happily but in a literary way...what more could a girl ask for. I enjoyed all of the stories, some more than others. There is an emphasis on pre-teen or early teen kids and their parents. The frustrations and irritations are evident, but mostly there is love underlying the awkwardness. A comic and compassionate novel… It shares with [ Euphoria] a fascination with the difficulty of defining the worth of one’s life when the familiar markers of adult achievement are slow to materialize. With wit and what reads like deep insider wisdom, Ms. King captures the chronic low-level panic of taking a leap into the artsy unknown and finding yourself adrift, without land or rescue in sight.”— Maureen Corrigan, Wall Street JournalFierce, funny, tender stories that demonstrate both range and emotional heft… All of them are stunners.”— Boston Globe MY THOUGHTS: Every now and then I come across an author who can take the every day, the mundane, and transform it into something beautiful. Lily King is one such author. Her stories, all but one, enchanted me. THE AUTHOR: Lily King grew up in Massachusetts and received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her M.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. After grad school she took a job as a high school English teacher in Valencia, Spain and began writing her first novel. Eight years, ten more moves all over the US, and many bookstore, restaurant and teaching jobs later, that novel was published.