She Was Like That

August 1, 2019
"Urban/suburban women" experience the extremes of mother love--and its cost--in Walbert's (His Favorites, 2018, etc.) volume of new and selected stories. The opening story, "M&M World," sets the tone as a divorced New Yorker is seized with anxiety when she momentarily can't find one of her daughters on an outing to Times Square. For Walbert's financially secure but emotionally shaky white women, maternal love is both overpowering and deeply stressful. Friendship is at best a temporary salve for women socializing uneasily, if tipsily, during their daughters' get-together in "Playdate." Several stories look back to earlier times, when women were only beginning to explore the possibility of mutual support: In "The Blue Hour," narrator Marion (who may or may not be the dead mother Marion mourned by a daughter in "Paris, 1994") recalls her brief but intense friendship as a young mother in Rochester with a woman who couldn't fit into the staid norms of the time and later committed suicide; in "Conversation," ladies from "the faster set" in a Vietnam War-era suburban development attempt a "rap session" while the hostess's black maid serves drinks until eventually joining in. "To Do," about a teenage girl covering for her mother's alcoholism--most of the women in these stories drink--is told from the point of view of the resentful grown daughter. But most of Walbert's mothers, even the drinkers, cherish their children, especially when the child has special needs ("A Mother Is Someone Who Tells Jokes"), is emotionally damaged ("Esperanza"), or even dead ("Do Something"). "Radical Feminists" is the only story prominently featuring a man. The protagonist runs into her former boss, who once made her choose between a burgeoning career and motherhood. She adores her sons but still harbors vengeance fantasies toward her ex-boss. Oddly, the title story concerns the volume's one successful professional, a widowed professor long past mothering. Reminiscent of Cheever's "The Swimmer," she escapes routine life by driving rainy streets, giving rides to strangers with whom she shares her stories. Tales of spare, unflinching beauty show how love and loneliness can occupy a heart together.

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August 12, 2019
This collection of 12 stories from Walbert (His Favorites) creates a taut, clever, and disturbing portrait of motherhood. Fathers, living with the family or apart, do not share their wives’ disquiet. In “M&M World,” a mother takes her daughters to the crowded candy-themed Times Square megastore and panics when she loses sight of her youngest girl. “Playdate” is also set in New York City. Two six-year-olds play together while their mothers chat, until one mother reads the other’s list of things that make her nervous: crowds, school, shadows, playdates. “Conversation” and “The Blue Hour” feature women that feel emotionally stranded. “Do Something,” “Slow the Heart,” and “A Mother Is Someone Who Tells Jokes” show women whose children are dead, ill, or impaired. Memories of deceased mothers haunt the protagonists of “Paris, 1994” and “To Do.” In “Radical Feminists,” a mother of two runs into her long-hated sexist former boss. Set from the 1950s to the present, Walbert portrays mothers beset by worry, fear, and dissatisfaction as they try to accentuate joy in their children’s lives. This is a piercing, intimate, and exquisite collection. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME Entertainment.

September 1, 2019

Offering stories both new and previously published, many having appeared from the 1990s to the present in publications such as the Yale Review, The New Yorker, and the Paris Review, this collection ranges in subject from single parenting and divorce to random acts of kindness. "M&M World" captures the overwhelming fear a mother feels when her child goes missing and her relief and gratitude when the child is found again. "Playdate" compares the get-together of grown women to that of two small girls, while "She Was Like That" concerns a college professor who gives rides to random strangers caught in a sudden rainstorm during the New York City rush hour. Several tales deal with the adjustments necessary for everyone concerned when a couple divorces. Briefly sketching a life-changing event that has brought the main character to the present moment, each piece provides a glimpse into the lives of the central characters as they grapple with problems, joys, and disappointments. VERDICT These stories from National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist Walbert are poignant and compelling; each is complete in itself but will leave the reader wanting more. Recommended for all short story readers. [See Prepub Alert, 3/15/19.]--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

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September 15, 2019
Walbert's intimate collection follows female characters in moments of reckoning, big and small. A majority of the 12 stories portray the layered relationships between mothers and daughters. M&M World follows divorced mother Ginny on a trip to the titular store in frenetic Times Square, where ruminations over her past are suddenly altered when her young daughter goes missing. To Do finds Constance wandering amidst haunting recollections of her alcoholic mother. Other tales depict women navigating their everyday lives and reaching out for connections. The simmering Playdate follows two seemingly different mothers, single Fran and married Liz, unexpectedly thrown together on a New York City afternoon. In Conversation, an innocuous gathering of county club wives turns into a forum for expressing long-held secrets and truths. With the evocative The Blue Hour, two housewives forge an unlikely relationship after narrator Marion moves into her new home and meets her unconventional neighbor Katharine. Walbert's carefully crafted tales are rich with humanity, deftly exploring her characters' struggles to either acknowledge or bury the truths in their lives.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)