Liars and Saints

 "The Dive Bar," by Katherine Heiny, is about Sasha, who writes YA novels. She is drawn to her boyfriend because he enjoys solving the kinds of plot riddles you encounter when you write for teens: How do I get the entire cast of characters onto an uninhabited island--without access to transportation--stranded for the entirety of Act Three (five to eight days)? Sasha is "the other woman," but this isn't a morality story. It's really about being dumb in your mid-twenties. Sasha's dear friend is drifting--but she can't acknowledge this. She signals her dawning sense of disapproval just by subtly, but emphatically, empathizing with the abandoned wife. "She must be feeling so terrible that she invested so many years, and so much energy--gave it all to this man, and he can't even try to to be honest with her...." There is probably a "friend breakup" on the horizon, but for now, Sasha will enjoy what she has. She and her buddy sample...

  "Bridesmaid, Revisited" is an unusual story about friendship. In high school, Marilee shares lunch with a new girl, Rhonda. Marilee soon realizes that this was a miscalculation; Rhonda doesn't have a sense of humor, and she is clingy. She is the first to "like" each and every one of Marilee's social media comments, including comments that Marilee has typed in response to *other* comments. Later, having moved to New York, Marilee believes that she has "shed" Rhonda. But this is wrong. Rhonda gets engaged to a dentist--"dentists are wonderful people"--and demands that Marilee return to the midwest to assume a role in the bridal party. Rhonda approaches planning tasks with a certain grimness; she is demanding and clueless. She asks each of the bridesmaids to vote for "solid color" or "print"--then blithely overrides the vote without acknowledging what she is doing. She also requires that each bridesmaid participate in a...

  My favorite essay is by Katherine Heiny; it's a love story in disguise. Its star is Katherine, who joins a suicide prevention team (because she herself is lonely and bored). Katherine is delighted when one of the "regulars" (a woman who abuses the phone line) chooses to send eclairs; other volunteers think the pastries may be poisoned, but Katherine feels that they are delicious, "especially as they grow slightly stale."  Taped for a news segment, Katherine accidentally fields a call from a friend, whose husband (a volunteer) has left his lunch at home. Nervous about the cameras, Katherine pretends that she is talking someone down from suicide. "How do you feel about your situation? No matter how intense the pain is, know that you will not always feel this way...." In my favorite scene, Katherine attends an AA meeting. (A brief study of AA is a requirement of suicide prevention training.) Slowly, Katherine sees that she recognizes most of the people ...

 I think Katherine Heiny is a genius, but also, she is a genius who writes funny and suspenseful stories about couples with young children who live on the East Coast of the United States. So, she is like my dream writer. This is how it began. At least, this is how it began for Lindy. Like so many other nights, with Lindy getting home from the station as Rob was leaving for acting class. They kissed quickly and then Lindy began unbuttoning her coat while Rob zipped his up. A couple dressing and undressing in reverse. "The girls are in bed--waiting for stories," Rob said, his sentences jerky as he wound a red scarf around his neck. "Maud skipped her nap--lunches are packed for tomorrow--chili for dinner." Lindy wondered if the scarf was new. It looked expensive. Sometimes Rob went through periods of buying himself luxuries--a cashmere scarf, a Muji turtleneck, a new watch strap--which they couldn't afford. But then it would be followed by a period of frugality, so...

  MIA’S TEENAGE SON , Gordey, came home from work looking super baked and Mia thought to herself: He looks so happy! He loves his job! He’s high on life! And just like that, Mia turned into her mother. Gordey was the most exceptional of teenagers, not because of his intelligence or his looks—although he was very smart and Mia thought he was quite good-looking—but because of his kind and gentle nature. He was now seventeen and had almost never given Mia a moment’s worry. He was the unicorn of teenagers: rare, magical, long-faced but handsome, perhaps gifted with the ability to bless people with miracles. Mia was in the kitchen, opening her mail and feeding their elderly cocker spaniel, Warhol, when Gordey got home from his summer job at the supermarket. Gordey poured himself a glass of milk and said, “This old lady came in and ordered two individual shrimps—” he worked in the butcher department and claimed that old ladies were the worst customers, always ordering itty-bi...

  Katherine Heiny’s new book ("Games and Rituals") begins with a joke: Colette has been a driving examiner for twelve years—she’s thirty-six—and yet it only occurs to her today that Ted Bundy had had a driver’s license. And that means that some driving examiner had taken him for a road test. Think about it: some driving examiner had willingly clambered into Ted’s VW bug and driven off with him. Maybe the driving examiner had even been a woman. A woman who never knew she had ridden next to Death, never knew she had docked Death points for improper clutch control. Why has Colette never thought of that before? But she thinks of lots of things lately that she hasn’t thought about before. So much about this is admirable. The arrival of Ted Bundy, in the first sentence, makes a reader “lean in.” Then the choice of words shows care and thoughtfulness: “VW bug,” “clambered in,” “improper clutch control.” The final twist establishes a kind of mystery: Why is Colette thinking o...

 Katherine Heiny has skills that make me think of Lorrie Moore: She moves from funny to sad in the span of two or three words. It's not crucial that a writer can make a reader laugh--but how nice it is when a sense of humor is part of the package. Heiny's new book, "Games and Rituals," has two toothbrushes on the cover. That's because the heroine of one story, the title story, has a preoccupation with toothbrushes. She has moved to New York to follow her boyfriend, even though this change means unpleasant "temping work." Her boyfriend insists on keeping his own apartment, and his wariness requires him to truck his toothpaste back and forth from his place to his girlfriend's place. The thought of purchasing a second toothbrush (a "travel" brush) just seems to be "too much." We can see where this relationship is headed. Heiny's heroine is a stand-in for anyone who recalls being adrift in "the twentysomething decade." (...

  A recent novel I loved was "Standard Deviation," by Katherine Heiny. Heiny is the real thing--a writer of funny, lively, raunchy fiction, and a writer with an active brain and an active heart. "Standard Deviation" concerns a couple in Manhattan--today. They're Graham and Audra. They have a son who might show signs of autism (the jury's out). Audra chats with everyone, and she lies easily, so Graham is both besotted and generally just a bit skeptical about Audra's fidelity. Meanwhile, Graham has reconnected with his ex-wife, the severe Elspeth, and no one knows where this reunion is headed. Elspeth's reemergence in the world is the main plot in the novel; Graham considers an affair, and also pokes at and investigates old wounds from the first marriage (wounds never previously addressed). Audra seems delighted by Elspeth, but also sometimes startled. For example, Audra's jaw drops when Elspeth declares that she "hates restaurants." Audr...

 I really liked Katherine Heiny's new book, "Early Morning Riser," which is like a sexier, raunchier version of Anne Tyler. Heiny is interested in human behavior, in absurd moments that could happen in Jane Austen or happen in Curtis Sittenfeld; her work has a timeless quality.  Here, Heiny describes a married couple. The man was famously promiscuous before settling down. This creates an issue when the couple gets pregnant: What would they name the baby? Girls' names were problematic because Jane didn't want to give the baby the name of any of Duncan's old girlfriends, which meant they couldn't choose Ann, Annabel, Angela, Barbara, Brandy, Candy, Mandy, Mindy, Lindy, Cindy, Trudy, Judy, Jody, Jill, Jessica, Julie, Jennifer, Gina, Christina, Irina, Regina, Sabrina, Susan, Suzanne, Susannah, Sherry, Barrie, Carrie, Kerry, Mary, Michelle, Isabelle, Noelle, Gabrielle, Janelle, Danielle, Debbie, Denise, Darlene, Darcy, Marcy, or Vicki. And those were only the n...

A writer I like, Katherine Heiny, has a new novel coming out tomorrow ("Early Morning Riser"). The buzz is substantial. Heiny writes in a playful, smart way about people whose lives are messy. For example, here is how Heiny once began a short story, "The Dive Bar": So picture Sasha innocently sitting alone in her apartment on a hot summer afternoon and the phone rings. She answers and a woman says, “This is Anne.” “Who?” says Sasha. “I think you know,” Anne says. “Well, I don’t.” Sasha is not trying to be difficult. She honestly doesn’t know. She is trying to think of possible Annes whose voices she should recognize. Is it someone she missed an appointment with? Is this the owner of that camera she found in a cab last month and kept— “I’m Carson’s wife,” Anne says. Sasha says, “Oh!” And even if she sat around from now until eternity saying Oh! every few seconds, she would never be able to inject it with as many layers of significance and wonder again. “I was thinkin...