In ‘Lost But Not Forgotten,’ Sittenfeld gives readers of her novel Prep a chance to see how our beloved character Lee Fiora is doing thirty years later, when she returns for an awkward school reunion. In ‘The Patron Saints of Middle Age,’ a woman looks up two best friends that she moved away from after her divorce. In ‘Creative Differences,’ a photographer from the mid-west quickly realizes that the ‘documentary’ she stars in is actually a commercial for a multi-national corporation. And in ‘The Marriage Clock,’ a Hollywood producer falls for a bestselling Christian self-help author while working on their film adaptation. In these twelve dazzling stories, Sittenfeld skewers our assumptions about fame, marriage and celebrity. Laying bare on the page what we’re all thinking but hesitate to say, she explores women’s lives at the intersection of sex, love, ambition and the entangled pursuit of a fulfilling life.
