Adult

Through SHRILL --- the book and then the Hulu series --- Lindy West became an inspiration. To this day, she is stopped on the street and hailed as a beacon of empowerment by women who felt badly for not conforming to a narrow set of societal norms --- thin, straight, compliant. But behind the scenes, Lindy never felt like she was the self-actualized woman fans made her out to be. When she found herself in the throes of a deep depression, with her marriage and sense of self-worth hanging in the balance, she knew she needed to make a change. In ADULT BRACES, Lindy shares the story of her rock bottom and the journey she took to claw her way out of it.

A violent car crash brings on the premature birth of the baby that Jane Whitefield and her husband have hoped for. But within weeks, Jane’s peaceful time as a new mother in a safe, harmonious home starts to revert to her harrowing previous life. She had spent over a decade rescuing and sheltering people from dangerous foes, taking them to new locations, and teaching them to live under new identities. Nearly simultaneously, as though the events were connected, people who are thousands of miles apart in vastly different circumstances start to move. All of these travelers are soon on their way to the old house in western New York. Suddenly the people requiring Jane’s special skills include not only multiple fugitives, but also Jane herself, her husband and their newborn, as the danger she faces comes from people who know how to find her.

A woman sends postcards to a former lover from the idyllic Gold Coast. A chorus of hometown voices gossip about a wayward friend returned. A young girl discovers a hidden box of horrors. Helen Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing and intricate portraits of Australian life. Now, in STORIES, comes the collected short fiction of a singular literary voice. These stories delve into the complexities of love and longing, of the pain, darkness and joy of life, and all told with Garner's characteristic sharpness, honesty and humor. Each one is a perfect piece, but together they showcase a rare talent and a master of many literary forms.

India, 1922: Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in Bombay, has secured her biggest client yet: Champa Films, a movie studio run by director Subhas Ghoshal and his wife, Rochana. Behind the scenes, Rochana recently has left the studio in Calcutta that made her famous, and the studio owner is enraged by what he claims is a breach of contract. Rochana needs Perveen’s legal help to extricate Champa Films from the impending controversy. To study Rochana’s glamorous world, Perveen attends a special screening and brings her film fanatic best friend, Alice Hobson-Jones. But in the aftermath of the event, one of the guests is found dead, and Rochana has disappeared. To protect her clients, Perveen begins to investigate the developing murder case. And for the first time in their friendship, Alice seems to be keeping a secret from Perveen.

Beverley, Elsie and Margot are wives of convicted killers. During the sun-drenched summer of 1966, they form an unlikely friendship after the discoveries of their husbands’ brutal crimes. With their exes --- some of California’s most infamous murderers --- dead or behind bars, they are attempting to forge a new future for themselves. They know people look at them and think only one thing: How could they not have known what their husbands were doing? How much are they to blame? And yet, when a string of local killings hits the news, the three women --- underestimated, overlooked, shrewd --- decide to get to work. After all, who better to catch a killer than those who have shared their lives and homes with one?

In a cluttered rent-controlled apartment in the middle of Manhattan, Barbara Rosenberg is terminally ill, high on opioids, and writing the story of her life. She has opinions about her smutty late husband, her career as the receptionist for a disreputable plastic surgeon, her glory days as an accomplished jazzerciser, and her failed aspirations to be a film noir actress. But what she really wants to talk about are unhinged thoughts on gender, Karl Marx, Zionism, and her two great disappointing loves: an estranged trans son and a long-lost best friend whose betrayal still haunts Barbara. As she descends further into delirium and illness, Barbara finds herself in a nightmare from which she cannot escape, and her circumstances put her on a crash course with these intimates --- or are they avenging nemeses? --- once again.

Twice-widowed, Lady Etheldreda Verity Isolde Tremaine Bramley is solely responsible for her two children, a priggish stepdaughter, a razor-taloned peregrine falcon, and a crumbling manor. Fierce and determined, Ethel clings to the respectability her deceased husband’s title affords her, hoping it will secure her daughters’ future through marriage. When a royal ball offers the chance to change everything, Ethel risks her pride in pursuit of an invitation for all three of her daughters --- only to see her hopes fulfilled by the wrong one. As an engagement to the future king unfolds, Ethel discovers a sordid secret hidden in the depths of the royal family, forcing her to choose between the security she craves and the well-being of the stepdaughter who has rebuffed her at every turn.

Former FBI agent Brigid Quinn hasn’t forgiven herself for the testimony that led to young mother Nicole Gleason being convicted for the manslaughter of her abusive husband. Now out of jail early on parole, Nicole is living in a group home for felons in Brigid’s Arizona neighborhood. But while Brigid hopes to make amends with Nicole, not everyone in the community is happy to have criminals on their doorstep. When outspoken local resident Dorita Gordino is grotesquely murdered, suspicion soon falls on Nicole. Brigid is determined to catch Dorita’s killer and prove Nicole’s innocence --- even if it means one of her own darkest secrets comes to light.

In the fall of 1974, Larry Bird dropped out of Indiana University; returned home to the tiny town of French Lick, Indiana; and got a job hauling trash. It could have ended right there for Bird were it not for two men: Bob King, an old coach with bad knees, and Bill Hodges, a man who knew what it was like to be poor and overlooked. In the spring of 1975, King and Hodges convinced Bird to play basketball at Indiana State University. Four years later, this unheralded team would put together one of the greatest seasons in American sports history. More than 50 million people would tune in to watch the Indiana State Sycamores play in the NCAA finals against Magic Johnson and Michigan State. What happened that night would change college basketball and the NBA. Perhaps more importantly, it would change the members of this hardscrabble team, binding them together forever.

In 2003, at the prestigious Brookfield Conservatory in Boston, a chance encounter sparks an inimitable friendship between driven pianist and singer Anna Buckley and composer wunderkind Will Pendleton. But soon after graduation, one night forever alters the trajectory of their lives, destroying their relationship in the process. Twenty years later in New York, 16-year-old piano virtuoso Lottie Thomas is grappling with the rigors of her elite prep school and the confounding disappearance of the woman who gave her up at birth. When Lottie suddenly discovers the startling truth of her identity, the revelation catalyzes a chain of events that not only reunites Lottie with her birth parents, but forces them together on a rock tour bus for a careening cross-country journey, where they finally must reconcile with irrevocable choices from the past.