In old age, Daisy Goodwill attempts to tell her life story as she struggles to understand her place in her own life.

Now, in this collection of interconnected short stories, Jennifer Haigh returns to the vividly imagined world of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town rocked by decades of painful transition. From its heyday during two World Wars through its slow decline, Bakerton is a town that refuses to give up gracefully, binding--sometimes cruelly - succeeding generations to the place that made them.

"The story of a group of people who haven't seen each other since they were best friends at school. When one of them dies in a terrible tragedy, the reunited friends work through their grief together and find that each of their lives is impacted in ways they could have never foreseen.--From publisher description.

The devastating effects of work, adultery, rebellion, and self-deception slowly destroy the once successful marriage of Frank and April Wheeler, a suburban American couple.

A powerful tale that follows the lives of a black family and their friends living in a Michigan city. In 1931, Macon Dead III, later nicknamed Milkman, is prematurely brought into the world, the first black child born in Mercy Hospital, just after his mother witnesses the brief flight of a man determined to fly from the cupola of the hospital. Although the novel revolves around Milkman, the stories spun out from him embrace a wide variety of characters...

Rural Wisconsin, 1907. In the bitter cold, wealthy businessman Ralph Truitt stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who has answered his advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, but her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, then slowly poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow....

It's mid-December and for the fifth year, at the Sullivans' lonely brownstone in Harlem, stockings go un-stuffed, tinsel un-strewn, gifts un-bought, mistletoe un-hung, chestnuts un-roasted, carols un-played, cookies un-cooked and a tree un-visible. But this year, a mysterious someone is sending gifts to widower Henry Sullivan and his two children, Will and Ella. These gifts are... strange. Noisy. And there's no returning them. First, a small beaked...

Presents a story inspired by human love, how people take care of one another, and how choices resonate through subsequent generations. Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and step-mother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Adbullah, Pari, as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was...

"Nora and Theresa Flynn are twenty-one and seventeen when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan--a decision...

North Archer, Andie Miller's ex-husband, asks her to become the guardian of two orphans who have driven out three nannies already--and live in a haunted house! What follows is a hilarious adventure in exorcism, including a self-doubting parapsychologist, an annoyed medium, her Tarot-card reading mother, an avenging ex-mother-in-law, and, of course, her jealous fiancé. And just when Andie thinks things couldn't get more complicated, North shows up...