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An NPR Best Book of the Year * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * An Electric Literature Best Short Story Collection of the Year * Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize
The "often hilarious and always compassionate" (New York Times Book Review) collected stories of a critically acclaimed, award-winning “American literary treasure” (Boston Globe), now in paperback-with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout.
From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer-now ninety-one years old and at the top of her game-has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who “raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height.��� (Washington Post) These collected short stories-most of them originally published in magazines including Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a new story that brings her early characters into the present-are evocative of an era that still resonates deeply today.
In the title story, a bystander tries to soothe a woman who seems to have cracked under the pressures of her life. And in several linked stories throughout, the relationship between the narrator and her husband unfolds in telling and often hilarious vignettes. Of their time and yet timeless, Wolitzer's stories zero in on the domestic sphere with wit, candor, grace, and an acutely observant eye. Brilliantly capturing the tensions and contradictions of daily life, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is full of heart and insight, providing a lens into a world that was often unseen at the time, and often overlooked now-reintroducing a beloved writer to be embraced by a whole new generation of readers.
Genre: Literary Fiction
The "often hilarious and always compassionate" (New York Times Book Review) collected stories of a critically acclaimed, award-winning “American literary treasure” (Boston Globe), now in paperback-with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout.
From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer-now ninety-one years old and at the top of her game-has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who “raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height.��� (Washington Post) These collected short stories-most of them originally published in magazines including Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a new story that brings her early characters into the present-are evocative of an era that still resonates deeply today.
In the title story, a bystander tries to soothe a woman who seems to have cracked under the pressures of her life. And in several linked stories throughout, the relationship between the narrator and her husband unfolds in telling and often hilarious vignettes. Of their time and yet timeless, Wolitzer's stories zero in on the domestic sphere with wit, candor, grace, and an acutely observant eye. Brilliantly capturing the tensions and contradictions of daily life, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is full of heart and insight, providing a lens into a world that was often unseen at the time, and often overlooked now-reintroducing a beloved writer to be embraced by a whole new generation of readers.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Hilma Wolitzer sees the miraculous, and the tragic, in modest lives and domestic particulars - wonders that might pass as ordinary events to the untrained eye. She magnifies the world. She insists, in one gorgeous sentence after another, that there's no such thing as a usual hour, let alone a usual day." - Michael Cunningham
"Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is electric: with wit, with rage, with grief, with the kind of prose that makes you both laugh and thrill to the darker, spikier emotions just barely visible under the bright surface. What a wonderful collection of stories." - Lauren Groff
"Wit, wisdom and warmth form the foundation of this sparkling collection. Wolitzer is a natural-born storyteller whose rigour, attention and generosity create miracles on each and every page." - Tayari Jones
"With her trademark dry wit and abiding compassion, Wolitzer explores the telling details of everyday life in ways that are unsettling, insightful and wholly original. These stories will linger in your mind and get under your skin. They shimmer with life." - Christina Baker Kline
"Wolitzer doesn't just brilliantly capture what we imagine is recognisable ordinary life, she reveals the unique magic that is so absolutely transcendent, it makes us see and live in the world differently ... A fabulous collection brimming with the compassion that Wolitzer is known for." - Caroline Leavitt
"Immensely gratifying, poignant, funny . Breathtaking." - Elizabeth Strout
"Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is electric: with wit, with rage, with grief, with the kind of prose that makes you both laugh and thrill to the darker, spikier emotions just barely visible under the bright surface. What a wonderful collection of stories." - Lauren Groff
"Wit, wisdom and warmth form the foundation of this sparkling collection. Wolitzer is a natural-born storyteller whose rigour, attention and generosity create miracles on each and every page." - Tayari Jones
"With her trademark dry wit and abiding compassion, Wolitzer explores the telling details of everyday life in ways that are unsettling, insightful and wholly original. These stories will linger in your mind and get under your skin. They shimmer with life." - Christina Baker Kline
"Wolitzer doesn't just brilliantly capture what we imagine is recognisable ordinary life, she reveals the unique magic that is so absolutely transcendent, it makes us see and live in the world differently ... A fabulous collection brimming with the compassion that Wolitzer is known for." - Caroline Leavitt
"Immensely gratifying, poignant, funny . Breathtaking." - Elizabeth Strout
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