GAMES and RITUALS by Katherine Heiny - Spotlight
Katherine Heiny offers a story of love, friendships, ex-husbands with benefits, parents of suspiciously sweet teenagers and more in her novel, GAMES and RITUALS (Knopf).
The games and rituals performed by Katherine Heiny’s characters range from mischievous to tender: In “Bridesmaid, Revisited,” Marlee, suffering from a laundry and life crisis, wears a massive bridesmaid’s dress to work. In “Twist and Shout,” Erica’s elderly father mistakes his four-thousand-dollar hearing aid for a cashew and eats it. In “Turn Back, Turn Back,” a bedtime story coupled with a receipt for a Starbucks babyccino reveal a struggling actor’s deception. And in “561,” Charlene pays the true price of infidelity and is forced to help her husband’s ex-wife move out of the family home. (“It’s like you’re North Korea and South Korea . . . But would North Korea help South Korea move?”)
Katherine Heiny, one of our most celebrated writers, our bard of waking up in the wrong bed, wearing the wrong shoes, running late for the wrong job, but loved by the right people, has delivered a collection of glorious humour and immense kindness.
The games and rituals performed by Katherine Heiny’s characters range from mischievous to tender: In “Bridesmaid, Revisited,” Marlee, suffering from a laundry and life crisis, wears a massive bridesmaid’s dress to work. In “Twist and Shout,” Erica’s elderly father mistakes his four-thousand-dollar hearing aid for a cashew and eats it. In “Turn Back, Turn Back,” a bedtime story coupled with a receipt for a Starbucks babyccino reveal a struggling actor’s deception. And in “561,” Charlene pays the true price of infidelity and is forced to help her husband’s ex-wife move out of the family home. (“It’s like you’re North Korea and South Korea . . . But would North Korea help South Korea move?”)
Katherine Heiny, one of our most celebrated writers, our bard of waking up in the wrong bed, wearing the wrong shoes, running late for the wrong job, but loved by the right people, has delivered a collection of glorious humour and immense kindness.
Katherine Heiny is the author of Early Morning Riser, Standard Deviation and Single, Carefree, Mellow, and her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and many other magazines.
She lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and children, and is a former resident of London, The Hague, and Boyne City, Michigan.
https://katherineheiny.com
@katherineheiny
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