In the short novels that make up this beautiful collection, Mary Gordon presents a quartet of finely rendered, emotionally resonant stories. Here we meet the ferocious Simone Weil during her last days as a transplant in New York City; a vulnerable American graduate student who escapes to Italy after her first, compromising love affair; the charming Irish liar of the title, who gets more out of life than most; and Thomas Mann, opening the heart of a high schooler in the Midwest.  At every turn, Gordon revels in the interactions and crucial flashes of understanding that change lives forever. Entrancing reading, The Liar’s Wife is a wonderful demonstration of Gordon’s literary mastery and human sympathy.

Mary Gordon is the author of seven novels, including Final Payments, Pearl, and The Love of My Youth; six works of nonfiction, including the memoirs The Shadow Man and Circling My Mother; and three collections of fic­tion, including The Stories of Mary Gordon, which was awarded the Story Prize. She has received many other honors, includ­ing a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.