HALF IN LOVE
Stories
Winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story and The Paris Review’s Aga Khan Prize for Fiction for the story “Aqua Boulevard.”
Kelly Reichardt’s film Certain Women is based on short stories from Half in Love and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It.
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PRAISE FOR HALF IN LOVE:
“There are times when a writer nails a story the way a diver nails a dive.... Half in Love offers up both plain speaking and mystery, subtlety and shock. That hole in the water marks where the final plunge of a story took your heart along with it.”
— The New York Times Book Review
“A sparkling debut.”
— The New York Times
“Tremendously beautiful. A writer not of promise but with a fully realized gift.”
— San Diego Union-Tribune
“Half In Love is an original mix of quiet calm and wrenching pain. Meloy’s gracefully confident, subtly emotional voice brings her locales vividly to life.”
— Washington Post
“A reader curious about short fiction but concerned about the esoteric excesses of the form should acquire a copy of Maile Meloy’s new collection. Half In Love is wonderfully wise beyond the author’s years....What distinguishes Meloy is her insistence on old-fashioned plot and sensibility. Her clear-eyed fictions exhort us to react in the face of dire change. This challenge makes Maile Meloy a truly compelling discovery.”
— Chicago Tribune
“Uncommonly lucid short stories. Here is an author who knows how to jump-start the reader’s interest.... A sparkling debut collection of tight, watchful stories.... At the end of this versatile collection the power of storytelling has made itself felt.”
— The New York Times
“Memorable.... In an era when story writers seem to be compelled to link their stories thematically into one tight package, Half In Love shows that sometimes alternating the flavor can improve the whole... She’s left a crisp, indelible picture of a place most readers will never have the privilege of visiting. With this promising debut she allows readers to live [in Montana] for a little while.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
“Throughout these bite-size stories, Maile Meloy has a flair for making uncertainty vivid, for providing oblique answers in the form of startling enigmas and for making the improbable seem palpably real.... Meloy’s voice is as unvarnished as her characters and as unadorned as a Montana hillside.”
— Los Angeles Times
“Meloy’s assured prose probes the minds of Montana ranch girls with astounding aplomb. A.”
— Entertainment Weekly
“There are times when a writer nails a story the way a diver nails a dive. . . . Half In Love offers up both plain speaking and mystery, subtlety and shock. That hole in the water marks where the final plunge of a story took your heart along with it.”
— The New York Times Book Review
“Meloy deftly captures the unique voices of her characters throughout. Using understatement that never becomes mired in minimalist obscurity, the author helps us come to understand what drives them. A fine collection.”
— The Denver Post
“Meloy’s talent lies in captivating the reader quickly and delicately, then—but only sometimes—offering redemption. She never falters in her craft. . . . She is a writer not of promise, but with a fully realized gift.”
— The San Diego Union-Tribune
“With her deceptively unfancy writing, Meloy excels at moments that make readers feel slightly sick with grief. Though her stories are sad, they’re not sentimental. She can even be quite funny, usually through her astute observations of character.”
— Newsday
“Beautifully written.”
— Elle
“Meloy is a fluid, confident and talented writer capable of moments of true grace.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Minimalist without being enigmatic, talented newcomer Meloy packs a lot into a small space. An impressive debut.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The stories’ fit and polish are remarkable, they are right on the dime with cadence and timing. And Meloy is fearless in the sweep of her attentions, commanding the manners, idioms and fundaments of a range of cultures, regions and classes. Trust this audacious new writer; welcome and enjoy her art. She is a wonder.”
— Geoffrey Wolff
“Maile Meloy writes with both fearlessness and true compassion, two talents that are rarely combined. In every story she creates a complex portrait of such disparate lives that by the end of the book I feel like I’ve seen the world. Half In Love is a vibrant, gorgeous collection.”
— Ann Patchett