{"product_id":"better-times-short-stories-paperback-softback-9781496207876","title":"Better Times; Short Stories (Paperback \/ softback) 9781496207876","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eShort Stories\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eSara Batkie (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781496207876, University of Nebraska Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 1 September 2018\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e156 pages, None - keep in Sept.\u003cbr\u003e21.6 x 14 x 1.2 cm, 0.216 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e“Sara Batkie is a writer for our times: lyrical and smart, clear-eyed and true. \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e may portend just that-better times, at least for literature, in these dark hours.”-Darin Strauss, author of \u003ci\u003eHalf a Life\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“With a controlled ferocity of perception, Sara Batkie lays bare a world in which all of us are spies and strangers, both to one another and ourselves. She’s a kind of Jean Rhys for our time, and this is a haunting first collection.”-Brian Morton, author of \u003ci\u003eFlorence Gordon\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eStarting Out in the Evening\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“\u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e is a book of quiet passions, narrated with grace. In these nine finely observed stories Batkie explores with empathy the impolite agonies that change the gravity of her characters’ worlds.”-Tracy O’Neill, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Hopeful\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“These stories are epic in scope with a frank beauty that embellishes the book’s stirring insights. A debut of gems, Batkie’s work is important fun.”-Seth Fried, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Great Frustration\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“The men and women in \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e are adrift. Yet they keep looking for ways to connect and love, and each of Sara Batkie’s beautiful sentences tethers them more deeply, to the reader’s heart and our collective human soul.”-Hannah Tinti, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Good Thief\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“In her debut collection, Sara Batkie displays the inventive brio of Karen Russell and the omnivorous range of Jim Shepard. Artfully crafted and tenderly told, these stories will break your heart and set fire to your imagination.”-Jon Michaud, author of \u003ci\u003eWhen Tito Loved Clara\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003eWinner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, the stories in \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e focus on what’s happening in places people don’t think to look. Women, sometimes displaced, often lonely, are at the heart of these stories. In \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e Sara Batkie focuses on the moments in women’s lives when the wider world is wrapped up in other matters: a father and daughter, separated by time and an ocean, dreaming of each other; a girl in a home for “troubled women” imagining the journey of the first dog in space; a phantom breast returning to haunt a woman after her mastectomy; a young woman giving birth to a litter of eggs. Such are the ordinary women weathering extraordinary circumstances in \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Divided into three sections covering the recent past, our current era, and the world to come, the stories gathered here-with characters stymied by loneliness, motherhood, illness, even cataclysmic climate change-interrogate the idea that so-called better times ever existed, particularly for women. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52744849948952,"sku":"9781496207876","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/better-times-short-stories-paperback-softback-9781496207876","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}