People I Wanted To Be: Stories

(Paperback)

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Description

In her eagerly anticipated collection, Gina Ochsner deftly examines the harrowing moments after a life or a love slips away and discovers that the human heart can be large enough for anything. In Halves of a Whole, twin sisters learn the trade of preparing bodies for burial in their Hungarian parents funeral home but are ill-prepared to handle a death of their own. In the humorous Last Words of the Mynah Bird, a desperately disgruntled husband buys a talking bird that he hopes will restore love to his marriage. A Russian couple mourns their infertility by bidding farewell to ghosts of the children they never had in Articles of Faith. And in The Fractious South, featured in the New Yorker, a young man finds solace and meaning in fishing. Emotionally resonant and witty, these stories are rendered with depth and a strong understanding of human forgiveness, as well as an unerring belief in small, daily miracles.

Reviews

Fantastical yet deeply human and intriguing stories.A" Erica Wagner, Times Gina Ochsner's exquisite new collection can be consumed in a sitting or two - Highly recommended.A" Daily Mail a beautiful, sensitive, frank book with a moving sense of the fragility of people's lives.A" Time Out

Author Bio

Born in 1970, GINA OCHSNER has worked as a dog-walker, a substitute teacher, and in a shop selling cheese and puppets, and now lives in western Oregon with her husband and four children. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker and received numerous literary awards in America. This is her UK debut.