Winner of the 2012 Drue Heinz Literature Prize
Selected by Sven Birkerts
The spine of this collection is a series of linked stories about Ruth Stein, a Brooklyn author whose first book has exposed her father's abuses; while the voice here, speaking across a lifetime, ranges from bittersweet to humorous to lethal. Elsewhere, Bosworth explores the extended family, the bonds of friendship, an apocalyptic Vermont, the rank yet redeemable Gowanus Canal; also rites of passage, race relations, divorce, middle-aged romance, dementia, funerals, alcoholism, and the Jewish religion.

Beth Bosworth has taught at the New School for Social Research, CUNY's NYC Technical College, and for many years at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, where she is also founding editor of the Saint Ann's Review. Her publications include a novel, Tunneling, and a collection of short stories, A Burden of Earth. Her stories have appeared in the Kenyon Review, the Seneca Review, Forward, IMAGE, Hanging Loose, Guernica, and elsewhere.