Kerry Langan's warm and generous third short story collection, My Name Is Your Name, includes stories of women at all ages--from little girls to old women whose long lives are now only fleeting memories. A six-year old girl wanders an amusement park alone; a teenager tries to balance the loyalty and shame she feels toward her schizophrenic sister; a young woman stubbornly makes a home for herself in an insular fishing village for reasons that elude her and those around her; a newlywed touring houses with her husband doesn't see an exciting future, rather unsettling glimpses of her own mortality. Finding unsuspected reservoirs of strength and purpose, girls and women negotiate young love, their first jobs, single motherhood, the death of friends, infidelity, the illness of spouses, memories of the Holocaust, and the indignities, anguishes, and gifts of age and aging in ways that are sharp, funny, poignant, and often quirky. Langan draws us into a world in which the very young blunder but also face truths that sometimes elude adults and the middle-aged and elderly turn to their younger selves to guide them in an ambiguous, challenging present. We come away encouraged and replenished--more ready to face many of the same issues ourselves."Once again, short story writer Kerry Langan knocks it out of the park. Her newest collection is a kaleidoscope of beautifully rendered stories illuminating, with tremendous verisimilitude, great insight, and lyrical and precise prose, the complex nature of the female heart and mind." Janice Eidus, author of The Last Jewish Virgin and The War of the Rosens"Kerry Langan's collection offers a lovely new literary voice and a quiet, sharp, perceptive mind. These stories are intimate, surprising and graceful, a pleasure to read."  Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta, Cost, and A Perfect Stranger & Other Stories"Kerry Langan's My Name is Your Name, an impressive and readable collection, is a sort of primer on the ages of women. Her female protagonists take on issues and problems that are familiar to us, struggling with identity, finding autonomy, dealing with and fighting against expectations in a wonderfully detailed world, where desire and choice are fraught with consequence. This suspension between the ordinary and the arrival of the unexpected permeates the collection, highlighting the darkness behind the bright scrim of daily life." Mary Grimm, author of Left to Themselves and Stealing Time

My Name Is Your Name & Other Stories

Literature & Fiction

Langan, Kerry

Short Stories & Anthologies

Wising Up Press

<p>In her second book of stories, Live Your Life &amp; OTher Stories, Kerry Langan explores, through characters drawn from academe and the wider world, the myths that unconsciously shape our behavior and our sense of possibility-and what happens when, in an unguarded moment, an unforseen circumstance, we catch a defining glimpse of who we actually are. In the first section, Live Your Life!, an unemployed philosophy major fresh from college tries to live out his utopia; a teenage telemarketer learns success is more than cold calls and sales volume; a jilted groom stumbles into a full life; a hair dresser and single mother discovers freedom where she least expects it; a soap opera star finally learns where his character ends and he begins. In the stories in A Lonely Virtue, all set in a small college town, a student balances the scales with her seductive teacher; a post-doc on her first job interview unwittingly follows in her mother's footsteps; a competitive professor learns what he has in common with a colleague he scorns; a shy dean discovers courage and his ambitious wife come-uppance. We recognize ourselves in these characters; they cause us to wince and to laugh, and to wonder what myths we may be blindly living by-and what surprises await us if we open our eyes. "Kerry Langan will delight her readers with her comic eye, her honest heart, and her feats of characterization. These smart, lively stories are more than a pleasure to read. They are fun to read." Joe David Bellamy, author of Green Freedom and Atomic Love "The characters in Live Your Life, Kerry Langan's masterful new collection of short stories, are you, me, and everybody: people navigating the ordinariness of life, and coming to terms with how often ordinary falls short of expectation. Her characters work in hair salons or in telemarketing call centers; they are aging soap opera actors with waning careers. They are also jilted lovers, divorcées, wounded children, and middle-aged women who remain invisible to the second-rate entertainers they hoped might have saved them from loneliness. With sharp eye and even sharper intuition, Langan captures every disappointment, every yearning, but also brings to light those fractional turns each person makes that signal a determination to continue on and lead lives of quiet dignity. Langan possesses a delicate yet assured touch and no tendency toward the sentimental. In her capable hands, characters make progress that is subtle, never mawkish, and every step is imbued with humanity." Jane Ward, author of Hunger and The Mosaic Artist "Kerry Langan has an eye for the grace that sometimes comes as the unanticipated consequence loneliness and loss. She transforms even the tokens of her characters' absurdities and failures-a pogo stick, a For Sale sign, an inexpensive ring-into unexpected instruments of grace.Each of her wonderful stories is a lesson in sympathy, delivered with gentle humor and a deep understanding of the human heart." Rob Hardy, author of The Collecting Jar</p>

Live Your Life & Other Stories

Parenting & Relationships

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Langan, Kerry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Langan, Kerry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Langan, Kerry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

My Name Is Your Name & Other Stories

Live Your Life & Other Stories