Equal Love

Book excerpt: “Touching and funny” short fiction about family, estrangement, and dislocation from the award-winning author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself (Elizabeth McCracken, author of Bowlaway). Featuring “stories about the touchy relationships between parents and children and the necessary pain of letting go—both for parents with children who are becoming adults and for adults whose parents are aging,” this collection showcases the talent, wit, and wisdom that have earned the author of The Fortunes critical acclaim and multiple literary prizes (Library Journal). “With his variety of settings comes a variety of voices: the narrator of ‘Brave Girl,’ trying to help her father navigate the aftermath of divorce; a mathematician in ‘Small World,’ revisiting the scenes of his Irish-Catholic boyhood and his first love; a retired encyclopedia salesman who can’t stop selling himself in ‘Sales’; a junkie trying to regain custody of her son in ‘Everything You Can Remember in 30 Seconds Is Yours to Keep.’ Ho manages to convey all his characters’ predicaments with finesse, and his emotional and geographical range are equally wide.” —Booklist “I read Equal Love with great admiration.” —Penelope Fitzgerald, author of The Bookshop