{"product_id":"better-times-9781496207876","title":"Better Times","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cdiv\u003eWinner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, the stories in \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e focus onwhat’s happening in places people don’t think to look. Women, sometimes displaced, often lonely, are at the heart of these stories.In \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003eSara Batkie focuses on themoments in women’s lives when the wider world is wrapped up in other matters: a father and daughter, separated by time and an ocean, dreaming of each other; a girl in a home for “troubled women” imagining the journey of the first dog in space; a phantom breast returning to haunt a woman after her mastectomy; a young woman giving birth to a litter of eggs. Such are the ordinary women weathering extraordinary circumstances in \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Divided into three sections covering the recent past, our current era, and the world to come, the stories gathered here—with characters stymied by loneliness, motherhood, illness, even cataclysmic climate change—inte\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Batkie’s stories shrewdly commingle the hopeless and the hopeful. Her women, demoralized by the absence of fathers and husbands, by stunted careers and aimless children, are locked in self-doubt and self-flagellation, though rarely do they lose faith in ‘better times,’ even when they’ve had slim experience of them.”—Mike Peed, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\"Nine tales—four from the past, four in the present, one set in the not-too-distant future—compose Batkie's stellar debut, all memorably portraying an ineffable yearning from well-drawn characters who may have known or will know better times. . . . In this remarkable collection, Batkie creates strong, evocative imagery with economy and precision. She elevates both the common and uncommon experiences of her characters, resulting in something quite extraordinary.\"—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\"Moving from the recent past into the future, Sara Batkie's short story collection \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e traverses lives that are subtly or drastically twisted away from what is familiar. Mystery and surrealism underlie the mundane, their charges lingering in the air.\"—\u003ci\u003eForeword Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sara Batkie is a writer for our times: lyrical and smart, clear-eyed and true. \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e may portend just that—better times, at least for literature, in these dark hours.”—Darin Strauss, author of \u003ci\u003eHalf a Life\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award\u003cbr\u003e“With a controlled ferocity of perception, Sara Batkie lays bare a world in which all of us are spies and strangers, both to one another and ourselves. She’s a kind of Jean Rhys for our time, and this is a haunting first collection.”—Brian Morton, author of \u003ci\u003eFlorence Gordon\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eStarting Out in the Evening\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e is a book of quiet passions, narrated with grace. In these nine finely observed stories Batkie explores with empathy the impolite agonies that change the gravity of her characters’ worlds.”—Tracy O’Neill, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Hopeful\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“These stories are epic in scope with a frank beauty that embellishes the book’s stirring insights. A debut of gems, Batkie’s work is important fun.”—Seth Fried, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Great Frustration\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The men and women in \u003ci\u003eBetter Times\u003c\/i\u003e are adrift. Yet they keep looking for ways to connect and love, and each of Sara Batkie’s beautiful sentences tethers them more deeply, to the reader’s heart and our collective human soul.”—Hannah Tinti, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Good Thief\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In her debut collection, Sara Batkie displays the inventive brio of Karen Russell and the omnivorous range of Jim Shepard. Artfully crafted and tenderly told, these stories will break your heart and set fire to your imagination.”—Jon Michaud, author of \u003ci\u003eWhen Tito Loved Clara\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Recent Past:\u003cbr\u003e When Her Father Was an Island\u003cbr\u003e Laika   \u003cbr\u003e Foreigners    \u003cbr\u003e No Man’s Land     \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Modern Age:\u003cbr\u003e Cleavage\u003cbr\u003e North Country, Early Morning\u003cbr\u003e Lookaftering \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe World to Come:\u003cbr\u003e Those Who Left and Those Who Stayed \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49409222345047,"sku":"9781496207876","price":13.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781496207876.jpg?v=1730506014","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/better-times-9781496207876","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}