Catherine Lacey

Harvard Book Store welcomes Whiting Award–winning writer CATHERINE LACEY—author of Nobody Is Ever Missing and The Answers—for a discussion of her debut short story collection, Certain American States.

About Certain American States

Catherine Lacey brings her narrative mastery to Certain American States, her first collection of short stories. As with her acclaimed novels Nobody Is Ever Missing and The Answers, she gives life to a group of subtly complex, instantly memorable characters whose searches for love, struggles with grief, and tentative journeys into the minutiae of the human condition are simultaneously gripping and devastating.

The characters in Certain American States are continually coming to terms with their place in the world, and how to adapt to that place, before change inevitably returns. A woman leaves her dead husband’s clothing on the street, only for it to reappear on the body of a stranger; a man reads his ex-wife’s short story and neurotically contemplates whether it is about him; a young woman whose Texan mother insists on moving to New York City with her has her daily attempts to get over a family tragedy interrupted by a mute stranger showing her incoherent messages on his phone. These are stories of breakups, abandonment, and strained family ties; dead brothers and distant surrogate fathers; loneliness, happenstance, starting over, and learning to let go. Lacey’s elegiac and inspired prose is at its full power in this collection, further establishing her as one of the singular literary voices of her generation.

Praise

"Lacey explores the effects of solitude and the strains of relationships in her stellar first story collection . . . On display is Lacey’s trademark handle on the plight of characters who feel lost in their own lives, as well as her ability to enter the minds of her harried protagonists, making this collection a strong new showcase for her fiction." ―Publishers Weekly

"[Lacey] continues to showcase her literary prowess . . . Readers will be drawn to Lacey’s rhythmic, reflective prose and the stories she tells, which are filled with affecting emotional complexity just at the point of bursting." ―Booklist

"Wryly devastating . . . The stories are exquisite: Every line is dry and spare and bracing, without a single syllable out of place. A fully realized vision." ―Kirkus Reviews