The Collected Stories

Here are all of Grace Paley's classic stories collected in one volume, from her first book The Little Disturbances of Man, published in 1959, to Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974), and Later the Same Day (1985).

Here are all of Grace Paley's classic stories collected in one volume. Her quirky, boisterous characters and rich use of language have won her readers' hearts and secured her place as one of America's most accomplished writers of short fiction.

Library Journal

This collection brings together Paley's three previous volumes of stories: The Little Disturbances of Man (1959; Penguin, 1985. reprint), Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (Farrar, 1974), and Later the Same Day ( LJ 1/86). Paley's inventive style and her funny, feisty, irreverent characters create vivid slices of life. Her stories often concern women coping with children alone, as in ``An Interest in Life,'' where a woman has an affair after her husband deserts her. A continuing character, Faith, is a divorced woman with children who gets her emotional support from her women friends. In ``Faith in a Tree,'' Faith's interests expand to include politics after she witnesses an antiwar demonstration in the park. In ``A Conversation with My Father,'' a writer explains that even a story's terrible ending is not final--the characters could still change. This possibility of hope permeates all Paley's stories, creating a rich treasury of unexpected pleasures and revealing truths. Essential.-- Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio

Grace Paley was born the daughter of Russian immigrants in the Bronx, New York, in 1922. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Atlantic Monthly, among other publications. Her highly acclaimed collections of stories include The Little Disturbances of Man (1959), Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974), Later the Same Day (1985), and The Collected Stories (1994), which won the National Book Award. She is also the author of two books of poetry, Leaning Forward (1985) and Begin Again(1992), and one collection of poems and prose pieces, Long Walks and Intimate Talks (1991). She has taught at Sarah Lawrence, Columbia, Dartmouth, and City College, and is a popular lecturer and workshop leader at colleges and universities. Included among her awards and honors are a 1997 Lannan Literary Award for Fiction; the 1994 National Book Award for Fiction; the 1993 Vermont Award for Excellence in the Arts; the 1992 REA award for Short Stories; and the 1989 Edith Wharton Award. In 1989 she was honored at a ceremony in Albany, New York, by then Governor Mario Cuomo, who declared her the first official New York State Writer. She now divides her time between New York City and Thetford Hill, Vermont.