Mother Rocket — Rita Ciresi

Rita Ciresi earned blockbuster acclaim and legions of new fans with her tender and hilarious novel, Pink Slip, a story of family and career, love and longing. Here she brings us seven award-winning stories, vibrant slices of life that are at once piercing, funny, and heartbreaking. In the title story, Ciresi weaves a tale of a New York City dancer whose spectacular sexuality and antic humor keep a life of tragedy at bay….In “The Silent Partner,” a young woman is caught up in a love affair that is both infantilizing and harrowing.…In the linked stories, “Resurrection” and “Second Coming,” we meet a piano student hopelessly in love with his alluring teacher and at the mercy of his sexually knowledgeable older brother; decades later, the brothers come together again, their relationships with their women utterly changed….And in “Pioneer Woman,” we watch a man's dream of the ideal wife turn into the blissful nightmare of another woman's fervent love.

Captivating, beautifully crafted, and full of the poetry and chaos of life itself, the stories in Mother Rocket solidify Rita Ciresi's place as an exquisite storyteller and an unmatched chronicler of life as we live it today.