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Single, Carefree, Mellow
by Katherine Heiny
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Katherine Heiny’s wonderful, heartwarming-without-being-soppy novels combine domestic drama, gentle humour and skewering social comedy, so I was pleased to discover that she published a short story collection early in her career (well, mid-way through an interrupted career ) gathering together some of the stories that first made her name. Single, Mellow, Carefree features rather a lot of adultery—a preoccupation Heiny has linked to her husband’s career as a spy, and the lies such a job necessitates. (“He used to be under death threat from the K.G.B.,” as she once recalled. “Then they called one day and said they were over it.”) But the story I’ve picked out is a droll story about a mother frantically organising a children’s party, featuring an underwhelming clown, a misshapen cake, and the advances of an unsettlingly mature second grader. Also recommended: Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny
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"Katherine Heiny’s wonderful, heartwarming-without-being-soppy novels combine domestic drama, gentle humour and skewering social comedy, so I was pleased to discover that she published a short story collection early in her career (well, mid-way through an interrupted career ) gathering together some of the stories that first made her name. Single, Mellow, Carefree features rather a lot of adultery—a preoccupation Heiny has linked to her husband’s career as a spy, and the lies such a job necessitates. (“He used to be under death threat from the K.G.B.,” as she once recalled. “Then they called one day and said they were over it.”) But the story I’ve picked out is a droll story about a mother frantically organising a children’s party, featuring an underwhelming clown, a misshapen cake, and the advances of an unsettlingly mature second grader. Also recommended: Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny"
"Nina is sleeping with her running partner; Sasha has agreed to meet her lover’s wife for a drink; and Gwen is in love with her roommate. Each story in Katherine Heiny’s collection doles out gems that are so authentic and outrageous I wanted to read them out loud to a friend over the phone — like the opening lines of the story “Blue Heron Bridge”: “The worst thing about the affair, Nina thought, was that it made her so impatient with the children.” Be ready to laugh and hoot, and then buy Single, Carefree, Mellow for all your girlfriends — but probably not your mother-in-law."
"Katherine Heiny's "Single, Carefree, Mellow" was also a singular pleasure."