Victoria Shorr's remarkable gift for depicting the inner lives of complex characters shines in two powerful explorations of family, ambition, class, and status.In "Great Uncle Edward," a family gathers for dinner. At 93, Great Uncle Edward commands the table in his three-piece suit; Cousin Russell attended both Harvard and Yale but is now reduced to selling off the family books; sisters Betty and Molly are caught between ghosts of a storied past and creeping destitution. These lives are signposts along the downward spiral of an old aristocracy."Cleveland Auto Wrecking" introduces Sam White, an immigrant from somewhere in eastern Europe. He cannot read, but has a gift for math and an instinct for the value of junk. We follow his clan through the Depression to the postwar boom in the West, where their fortunes soar, creating new tests of loyalty.
When Jane Austen’s father deeded the family home to her brother, Jane was tossed to the winds, no money to her name, probably too old to be wed. At this bleak moment, she receives a proposal of marria
Set in the sparse frontier settlements of northeastern Brazil—a dry, forbidding, and wild region the size of Texas, known locally as the Sertao—Backlands tells the true story of a group of nomadic out
