Alix Ohlin

An Esquire Best Book of Summer - A collection of glittering, surprising, darkly funny stories of people testing the boundaries of their lives--from the award-winning author of Dual Citizens, who is "spoken of in the same reverent breath as Lorrie Moore and Joy Williams" (Heidi Julavits, author of The Folded Clock). In the mordantly funny "Money, Geography, Youth," Vanessa arrives home from a gap year volunteering in Ghana to find that her father is engaged to her childhood best friend. Unable to reconcile the girl she went to dances with in the eighth grade and the woman in her father's bed, Vanessa turns to a different old friendship for her own, unique diversion. In the subversive "The Brooks Brothers Guru," Amanda drives to upstate New York to rescue her gawky cousin from a cult, only to discover clean-cut, well-dressed men living in a beautiful home, discussing the classics, and drinking sophisticated cocktails, moving her to wonder what freedoms she might willingly trade away for a life of such elegant comfort. And in "The Universal Particular," Tamar welcomes her husband's young stepcousin into their home, imagining they are saving this young woman from Somalia by way of Stockholm, only to find their cool suburban life of potlucks and air-conditioning knocked askew in ways they cannot quite understand. Populated with imperfect families, burned potential, and inescapable old flames, the thirteen stories in We Want What We Want are, each one, diamond-sharp--sparkling with pain, humor, and beauty.

A masterful achievement: a joint coming-of-age story and an achingly poignant portrait of the strange, painful, ultimately life-sustaining bonds between sisters.Lark and Robin are half-sisters whose similarities end at being named for birds. While Lark is shy and studious, Robin is wild and artistic. Raised in Montreal by their disinterested single mother, they form a fierce team in childhood regardless of their differences. As they grow up, Lark excels at school and Robin becomes an extraordinary pianist. At seventeen, Lark flees to America to attend college, where she finds her calling in documentary films, and her sister soon joins her.Later, in New York City, they find themselves tested: Lark struggles with self-doubt, and Robin chafes against the demands of Juilliard. Under pressure, their bond grows strained and ultimately is broken, and their paths abruptly diverge. Years later, Lark's life is in tatters and Robin's is wilder than ever. As Lark tries to take charge of her destiny, she discovers that despite the difficulties of their relationship, there is only one person she can truly rely on: her sister.In this gripping, unforgettable novel about art, ambition, sisterhood, motherhood and self-knowledge, Alix Ohlin traces the rich and complicated lives of two indelible women. Dual Citizens captures the unique language of sisters and makes visible the imperceptible strings that bind us to the ones we love for good.

1996: Grace, a psychiatrist, juggles a suicidal boyfriend and a young patient's impending abortion. 2002: Annie, a struggling actress, takes pity on a homeless girl and invites her into her New York apartment. 2006: Mitch, a divorced counsellor, finds that listening to other people's problems takes his mind off his own. Ten years. Three lives. One truth: helping other people is infinitely simpler than helping yourself.

'Signs and Wonders' documents a couple's divorce after twenty-six years of marriage; in 'Robbing the Cradle', a teacher desperate to conceive resorts to the most extreme measures imaginable; and 'The Stepmother's Story' sees a young woman experience every parent's worst nightmare while on holiday in Edinburgh. These are but three of the stories in a collection showcasing Alix Ohlin's matchless characterization and raw readability. The reader reaches the end of one story, feels sad to leave its cast behind, yet are buoyed when, mere moments later, they find themselves equally engrossed in the next offering.

Grace is an exceedingly competent and devoted therapist living in Montreal. When she stumbles across a man who has just failed to hang himself, her instinct to help kicks in immediately. Before long, however, she realizes that her feelings for this charismatic, extremely guarded stranger are far from straightforward. In the meantime, her troubled teenage patient, Annie, runs away to pursue an acting career, and Grace's ex-husband Mitch leaves the woman he's desperately in love with to attend to a struggling native community in the bleak Arctic. As we follow these four compelling, complex characters, Ohlin gives them each a consciousness that is utterly distinct and urgently convincing.