Jill McCorkle

In the course of this wide-ranging, richly detailed novel, every kind of human problem finds its way to the doorstep of Quee Purdy, a tireless entrepreneur for whom love and sex are the "hot commodities" in which she deals. McCorkle's extraordinary storytelling skills allow her to juggle at least six parallel stories in a novel about playing God. And she does it divinely.

Jill McCorkle's new collection of twelve short stories is peopled with characters brilliantly like us-flawed, clueless, endearing. These stories are also animaled with all manner of mammal, bird, fish, reptile-also flawed and endearing. She asks, what don't humans share with the so-called lesser species? Looking for the answer, she takes us back to her fictional home town of Fulton, North Carolina, to meet a broad range of characters facing up to...

"Lil and Frank married young, having bonded over how they both lost a parent when they were children. Over time, their marriage grew and strengthened, with each still wishing for so much more understanding of the parents they'd lost prematurely. Now, after many years in Boston, they have retired in North Carolina. There, Lil, determined to leave a history for their children, sifts through letters and notes and diary entries-perhaps revealing more...

"[A] remarkable collection . . . Bold and addictive, Going Away Shoes is a find." —People
The foibles of the people in Jill McCorkle’s world are so familiar that we want nothing so much as to watch them walk into—and then get out of—life’s inevitable traps. Here, in her first collection in eight years, McCorkle collects eleven brand-new stories bristling with her characteristic combination...