In her second story collection, Sittenfeld shows why shes as beloved for her short fiction as she is for her novels. In these dazzling stories, she conjures up characters so real that they seem like old friends, laying bare the moments when their long held beliefs are overturned.

In The Patron Saints of Middle Age, a woman visits two friends she hasnt seen since her divorce. In A for Alone, a married middle-aged artist embarks on a creative project intended to disprove the so-called Mike Pence Rule, which suggests that women and men cant spend time alone without lusting after each other. And in Lost but Not Forgotten, Sittenfeld gives fans of her novel Prep a window into the world of her beloved character Lee Fiora, decades later, when Lee attends an alumni reunion at her boarding school.

Hilarious, thought-provoking, and full of tenderness for her characters, Sittenfelds stories peel back layer after layer of our inner lives, keeping us riveted with her utterly distinctive voice.