Lauren Groff --- the New York Times bestselling author of FATES AND FURIES, MATRIX and the story collection FLORIDA --- is back with another work of short fiction that transports readers from the 1950s to the present. In BRAWLER, Groff explores generational trauma and privilege, midlife ennui, crushing family obligations and guilt, and the unspoken battles people privately face, all told with her masterful hand.

In the opening story, “The Wind,” a defeated wife and mother scrambles to gather herself and her children and flee their small town before her abusive husband, a local cop, realizes they’re gone. Sadly, this is a situation that is far too familiar, as observed by the narrator: “I look around and can see it in so many other women, passed down from a time beyond history, this wind that is dark and ceaseless and raging within.”

"[E]ach of these polished gems is rich enough to be expanded into a full-length novel. Lauren Groff’s writing is impeccably precise, gorgeous and nuanced, securing her place as one of the most capable and exciting writers working today."

Set in 1957, “To Sunland” introduces us to a teenager named Joanie. After the death of her mother, Joanie is suddenly left in charge of her older, intellectually impaired brother, Buddy. But she has a scholarship waiting for her at a women’s college in Maine. She can’t possibly care for Buddy and go to school. The story details their bus journey from their small, dusty town to the Florida Farm Colony for Epileptic and Mentally Deficient Children, which has been rebranded as Sunland, where they are holding a spot for Buddy. In my review of FLORIDA, I mentioned that I felt Groff was this generation’s Kate Chopin. As adroitly evidenced here most of all, she has become our generation’s Flannery O’Connor.

Featuring a similar theme of escape, the unnamed narrator of “Annunciation” flees the East Coast and her neglectful family after her college graduation and moves across the country to northern California. There she inhabits a Spanish-style pool house in the affluent town of Palo Alto, where she becomes the part-time caretaker of the place for her eccentric landlady. While there, she also works a soul-deadening data-entry temp job in social services and wonders about her odd coworker’s private life. Despite its challenges and the satisfying life she’s living now, it’s clear that she looks back at that time fondly: “I once lived in golden light in California, that light lived within me, and though it returns for spells here and there, that same golden light has never been with me as steadily as it was that year.”

The deeply affecting title story features a high school diver prone to fistfights who we soon learn is her dying mother’s only caregiver. It’s a heartbreaking example of how we never really know what people are going through in their private lives: “She kept herself still and ached, and ached, and yet forced more stillness upon herself, because she knew that the moment her body weakened and moved despite her ferocious will, that movement would reawaken time…” These are beautiful descriptions of such sad events.

“Birdie” also features the theme of unknown battles that we fight beneath the surface. Three former grade-school girlfriends rally around the hospital bed of their friend, who is dying from cancer, and redress old wounds. The story cuts to the quick when they play the confessional game of “What’s the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Done?” Secrets are unleashed, and painful truths are revealed. Like a lot of Groff’s tales, this one in particular has the depth to become a moving indie feature film by the likes of the Duplass brothers or the writer/star of Sorry, Baby, Eva Victor.

The book’s longest piece, “What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?,” opens on a heated July 4th barbecue at the home of a wealthy Boston family (think “Succession”). It’s revealed that the two deserving adult children have been disinherited from the family bank leadership in favor of their less qualified brother.

The story follows Chip, the youngest male heir --- from adolescence to his mid-20s --- as he battles the twin demons of loneliness and alcoholism, and attempts to make a different life for himself after sputtering out in his job at the bank. Hoping to keep him from drinking, his sister imposes a makeshift rehab by installing him at their grandparents’ estate in New Hampshire, where he starts restoring the rundown boathouse and guest cottage.

Enjoying the hard work but feeling lonely, Chip falls for an older local woman he thinks is beneath him. He quickly becomes obsessed and angered when the relationship doesn’t go according to his plans, and he spirals again --- with tragic consequences. Readers audibly will be shouting “No, no, NO!” at the characters’ actions.

As in FLORIDA, each of these polished gems is rich enough to be expanded into a full-length novel. Lauren Groff’s writing is impeccably precise, gorgeous and nuanced, securing her place as one of the most capable and exciting writers working today.