"[Jean Ann] Douglass’ narration, intimate and bemused and every so often curling up with wryness at the end of a sentence, is a perfect match for Shun-lien Bynum’s delicate delights." -- Slate A Buzz Book of Fall at Publishers Lunch * A WIRED Ultimate Summer Reading pick National Book Award finalist Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s highly anticipated return weaves together like and unlike, mythic and modern In nine stories that range from the real to the unreal, strange to familiar, funny to frightening, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum reminds us why her wildly original debut, Madeleine Is Sleeping, and her masterful Ms. Hempel Chronicles have become contemporary classics--celebrated and beloved. In a nimble dance of lightness and gravity, Likes explores the full range and contradictions of our contemporary moment. Through unexpected visitors, Waldorf school fairs, aging indie-film stars, the struggle to gain a foothold in the capitalist shell-game of work, the Instagram posts of a twelve-year-old—these stories of friendship and parenthood, celebrity and obsession, race and class and the passage of time, form an engrossing collection that is both otherworldly and suffused with the deceitful humdrum of everyday life. For fans of Joy Williams, George Saunders, Lauren Groff, and Deborah Eisenberg, Likes helps us see into our unacknowledged desires and, in quick, artful, nearly invisible cuts, exposes the roots of our abiding terrors and delights. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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“Reality and unreality frequently blur in this impressive collection. From the inscrutability of adolescence to the instability of suburban order, Bynum’s subjects hold together through her control of language and attention to detail.”
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New York Times Book Review