"Who can really understand Bowles’ writing? Well, some people can, but not I. Nonetheless I love it, and it has the irrefutable hyper-reality of dreams. Only a very few other writers (Denis Johnson is one) have used American English with such exactitude and so cracklingly, have observed so fearlessly the emotional abysses that confront us, and are so deliriously funny. Claire Messud’s introduction to the recent Ecco edition is eloquent and insightful."

"A beauty supply store owner of a certain age loses her husband, and thinks that’s the end – but her friends rally around her, and various members of her complicated family (her sister, her daughter, the stepson who’s come into her life as an adult) still need her love and competence. A funny, moving story with some smart things to say about aging, mental illness, and how a mother’s work is never done."