**One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2009-- now adapted into
the feature film Certain Women, starring Kristen Stewart--
award-winning writer Maile Meloy's short stories explore complex lives
in an austere landscape with the clear-sightedness that first endeared
her to readers. Don't miss her new novel, Do Not Become Alarmed.
**
Meloy's first return to short stories since her critically acclaimed
debut, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It is an extraordinary new
work from one of the most promising writers of the last decade.
Eleven unforgettable new stories demonstrate the emotional power and the
clean, assured style that have earned Meloy praise from critics and
devotion from readers. Propelled by a terrific instinct for
storytelling, and concerned with the convolutions of modern love and the
importance of place, this collection is about the battlefields-and
fields of victory-that exist in seemingly harmless spaces, in kitchens
and living rooms and cars. Set mostly in the American West, the stories
feature small-town lawyers, ranchers, doctors, parents, and children,
and explore the moral quandaries of love, family, and friendship. A
ranch hand falls for a recent law school graduate who appears
unexpectedly- and reluctantly-in his remote Montana town. A young father
opens his door to find his dead grandmother standing on the front step.
Two women weigh love and betrayal during an early snow. Throughout the
book, Meloy examines the tensions between having and wanting, as her
characters try to keep hold of opposing forces in their lives: innocence
and experience, risk and stability, fidelity and desire.
Knowing, sly, and bittersweet, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It
confirms Maile Meloy's singular literary talent. Her lean, controlled
prose, full of insight and unexpected poignancy, is the perfect
complement to her powerfully moving storytelling.
