Mary Hannah Terzino, "Secrets and Other Hobbies"

In this phenomenal collection of stories exploring the experiences of women—and sometimes men—of all ages, at pivotal moments in their lives, a child spies two women kissing at her mother’s bridge club. A young girl unwittingly contributes to terrible loss as she tries to honor her friend’s deepest wishes. A late-night drowning at a high school graduation party is mired in secrets. An older woman compulsively attends the town’s funerals, believing her presence there to be God’s calling. A retired woman finally harvests insights and breaks old habits through revelations from her daughter’s experiences. The stories in Secrets and Other Hobbies are layered with purposeful deception and poignant, hidden yearnings that cause their characters to stumble before they rise, if they rise at all. Serious and darkly humorous, noble and morally ambiguous, achingly vulnerable and always memorable, Mary Hannah Terzino’s debut lays bare an indelible and realistic Midwest.