Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny
Superb
THE TIMES
Joyous
THE OBSERVER
The beloved author of Early Morning Riser brings us eleven glittering stories of love friendships formed at the airport bar, ex-husbands with benefits, mothers of suspiciously sweet teenagers, ill-advised trysts in all its forms, both ridiculous and sublime.
The games and rituals performed by Katherine Heinys characters range from mischievous to tender. In Bridesmaid, Revisited, Marilee, suffering from a laundry and life crisis, wears a massive bridesmaids dress to work. In Twist and Shout, Erickas elderly father mistakes his four-thousand-dollar hearing aid for a cashew and eats it. In Turn Back, Turn Back, a bedtime story coupled with a receipt for a Starbucks babyccino reveal a struggling actors deception. And in 561, Charlene pays the true price of infidelity and is forced to help her husbands ex-wife move out of the family home.
From one of our most celebrated writers, our bard of waking up in the wrong bed, wearing the wrong shoes, late for the wrong job, but loved by the right people, Katherine Heiny has delivered a work of glorious humour and immense kindness.