The Cost of Lunch, Etc.

Overview

In this collection of short stories, bestselling author Marge Piercy brings us glimpses into the lives of everyday women moving through and making sense of their daily internal and external worlds. Keeping to the engaging, accessible language of Piercy’s novels, the collection spans decades of her writing along with a range of locations, ages, and emotional states of her protagonists. From the first-person account of hoarding and a girl’s narrative of sexual and spiritual discovery to the recounting of a past love affair, each story is a tangible, vivid snapshot in a varied and subtly curated gallery of work. Whether grappling with death, familial relationships, friendship, sex, illness, or religion, Piercy’s writing is as passionate, lucid, insightful, and thoughtfully alive as ever.

Reviews

“The author displays an old-fashioned narrative drive and a set of well-realized characters permitted to lead their own believably odd lives.”  —Thomas Mallon, Newsday

“This reviewer knows no other writer with Piercy’s gifts for tracing the emotional route that two people take to a double bed, and the mental games and gambits each transacts there.”  —Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune

“Marge Piercy is not just an author, she’s a cultural touchstone. Few writers in modern memory have sustained her passion, and skill, for creating stories of consequence.”  —Boston Globe

“What Piercy has that Danielle Steel, for example, does not is an ability to capture life’s complex texture, to chart shifting relationships and evolving consciousness within the context of political and economic realities she delineates with mordant matter-of-factness." —Wendy Smith, Chicago Sun-Times

“As always, Piercy writes with high intelligence, love for the world, ethical passion, and innate feminism.”  —Adrienne Rich, feminist and author, A Change of World

"With uncompromising emotional intensity, Piercy captures the complex female experience in her debut short story collection. Powerful in scope, the collection feels driven by an idea rather than a story, demonstrating Pierce's understanding of how social constructs evolve in deeply personal ways." —Publishers Weekly

"Piercy homes in on her characters, mixing just the right amount of humor into her always insightful take on imperfect human relationships, in their many guises." —Deborah Donovan, Booklist

"Piercy's debut short-story collection heralds the beloved feminist writer's return to fiction after a long hiatus. The stories, written in the fiercely honest style of her novels, follows everyday women attempting to make sense of their world." —Ms. Magazine

Author Biography

Marge Piercy is the author of 17 novels, including the national bestsellers Braided Lives, Gone to Soldiers, and Woman on the Edge of Time; 17 volumes of poetry; and a critically acclaimed memoir, Sleeping with Cats. She has been the recipient of four honorary doctorates and has been a key player in many of the major progressive political battles, including the anti–Vietnam War and the women’s movements, and more recently an active participant in the resistance to the war in Iraq. She lives in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.