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A lyrical new collection of short stories from Alice Petersen.
An old record player; an unposted letter; a pearl necklace never purchased; a badly written poem from the woman you love: tokens, gifts, and objects lost or left behind, desired or not wanted at all are the starting points for the stories in Worldly Goods, a new collection by Alice Petersen. The stories reveal that ownership is more than possession, for Petersen shows how small objects stand as markers of our attempts to communicate with each other.
These lyrical, open-eyed stories are set in North America, England, and the author's native New Zealand. With a focus on marriage, family, and the moral complexities that arise from these relationships, Alice Peterson's fiction evokes the best of Katherine Mansfield and Alice Munro.
"Starred Review. Crisp sentences and slightly old-fashioned vocabulary combine gratifyingly with evocative visual imagery to make this collection a pleasure to read." - Publishers Weekly
"What a thrill to follow a writer from promise to fulfillment. Alice Petersen's debut collection of short stories - marked her as a young writer to watch. [This] collection, Worldly Goods, more than delivers." - Montreal Review of Books
"Alice Petersen writes as eloquently about the natural world as she does about the world of human emotion and desire." - David Bezmozgis, author of The Free World
This information about Worldly Goods was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alice Petersen's first book, All the Voices Cry, won the QWF Award for Best First Book. Born in New Zealand, she now lives and works in Montreal, Quebec.
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