Beloved author Jill McCorkle delivers a collection of masterful stories that are as complex as novels—deeply perceptive, funny, and tragic in equal measure—about crimes large and small. McCorkle, author of the New York Times bestselling Life After Life and the widely acclaimed Hieroglyphics (“One of our wryest, warmest, wisest storytellers” —Rebecca Makkai), brings us a breathtaking collection of stories that offers an intimate look at the moments when a person’s life changes forever.Old Crimes delves into the lives of characters who hold their secrets and misdeeds close, even as the past continues to reverberate over time and across generations. And despite the characters’ yearnings for connection, they can’t seem to tell the whole truth. In “Low Tones,” a woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband’s commentary. In “Lineman,” a telephone lineman strains to connect to his family even as he feels pushed aside in a digital world. In “Confessional,” a young couple buys a confessional booth for fun, only to discover the cost of honesty. Profoundly moving and unforgettable, for fans of Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and Lily King, the stories in Old Crimes reveal why McCorkle has long been considered a master of the form, probing lives full of great intensity, longing and affection, and deep regret.
My Review:
Old Crimes comes out next week on January 9, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!
"Eventually," I said, waiting for her to look at me, her eyes the same shade of blue as my mother's, "we'll just have one long finger to push buttons and our arms and legs will start to disappear because we don't use them and the brain will dry up until it's about the size of a chicken brain with the attention span of one minute-little one-track-little tweet tweet." She rolled her eyes at me, phone there on her leg where she'd doodled all over her blue jeans in ink: a star, a flower, somebody's initials. Her phone lit up and made sounds every few minutes, until she finally sighed and said excuse her for one sec while she let her friends know why she wasn't answering. I didn't want to imagine what she was writing back to them, so just continued my own thought of what the future might hold: single-lane highways with no place for detours or a U-turn. No place to safely break down. No way to prepare for the big blackout.
From "The Lineman"
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