Jane of Hearts and Other Stories

"Weber's genius in these startling, haunting stories is to find the momentary connections in things that make up or derail a life, be it an artichoke and a dead woman's earrings, or a plant and a hospice worker. Written in prose as dazzling and finecrafted as diamonds, Weber's stories show us ordinary people in extraordinary moments, doing what the best literature does-they make us look at our own world differently."-Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World

At the heart of every story in this collection, Katharine Weber has located a compelling character in medias res, at a moment when situation, desire, and identity are intersecting and sometimes colliding. Children go door to door selling poison mushrooms. An elderly New Yorker on the brink of losing her freedom bolts for one last dignified adventure. A girl is employed to babysit a sleeping baby she is forbidden to see. In the title novella, lonely children roaming their Connecticut neighborhood discover a forgotten bomb shelter, which they make their secret headquarters. Jane of Hearts offers Katharine Weber's readers a lively assortment of her short fiction, each story a precise and nuanced investigation of its moments.

With eloquence, wit and wisdom, Katharine Weber transports her readers from Madagascar to Connecticut, from jury duty to a feast of poisonous mushrooms. In the best way, I never knew what I would find on the next page in this wonderfully engaging, vividly peopled collection.-Margot Livesey, author of The Boy in the Field and The Hidden Machinery

Katharine Weber's trademark intelligence and wit are on full, dazzling display in her not-to-be missed, career-spanning collection, Jane of Hearts and Other Stories. Secret family histories, childhood games turned dangerous, moments imbued with fierce, unexpected consequences, inform these compulsively readable, razor-sharp stories. A triumph."-Kate Walbert, author of She Was Like That and His Favorites

Weber's sly, elegant stories unfurl to reveal themselves from inside out, startlingly beautiful, sharp-edged, funny, and moving. This collection is sheer pleasure to read.-Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of The Great Man and The Last Cruise

Whether she's turning her attention to the miniature tragedy of a group of curious neighborhood girls at play among dangerous chemicals, uncovering new details of the grand harrowing European Jewish experience in WWII, or simply giving us a glimpse of a fraught relationship on a trip to Geneva, Katharine Weber's linked stories are always full of her signature verve, subtle wit and precision. This is an impressive collection of interwoven stories, marked by breadth, fierce intelligence and sheer storytelling talent.-Daniel Torday, author of Boomer1 and The Last Flight of Poxl West