About this item
A young woman, desperate to escape the unspoken secrets of her impoverished Midwestern family, bluffs her way into college, arriving at the prestigious "school by the lake" in Chicago where she meets Jess, charismatic and rich and needy, and the two quickly form an insular, competitive friendship. The narrator immerses herself in Jess's world, collecting her new friend's hand-me-downs, accompanying her to family dinners and frat parties. As guilt builds for the sister she has left behind, the narrator is drawn into Jess's apparently effortless existence, with a perfect Yuppie family living nearby, and a doting fiancee. Meanwhile the Tylenol Killer -- a local psychopath rumored to be stuffing cyanide into pills sold at the drugstore -- is at first just terrifying gossip on campus.
About the Author
I am the author of Pears on a Willow Tree and A Year and a Day (novels) . My collection of linked stories about the death of my first husband, This Angel on My Chest, won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. A new novel, Silver Girl, is forthcoming from Unnamed Press in 2018, (YAY!!!!) and Reversing the River, a historical novel, is being serialized on the literary app Great Jones Street in summer 2017. Short fiction & essays have appeared/are forthcoming in Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Hudson Review, The Sun, Shenandoah, Arts & Letters, Washingtonian, The Collagist, and Cincinnati Review. I'm a member of the core fiction faculty at the Converse low-residency MFA program and teaches in the MA Program in Writing at Johns Hopkins University. If I'm not writing, what I love most to do is cook. ..which is probably apparent from my books and stories, which are filled with food. Fun facts: Once I won the blue ribbon for chocolate chip cookies at the Virginia State Fair. Check out my website for a recipe for the best Thanksgiving stuffing in the world! A guide for book clubs is posted on my website.
