The award-winning author at her storytelling best: four compelling novellas of Americans in Europe and Europeans in America.�In these absorbing and exquisitely made novellas of relationships at home and abroad, both historical and contemporary, we meet the ferocious Simone Weil during her final days as a transplant to New York City; a vulnerable American grad student who escapes to Italy after her first, compromising love affair; the charming Irish liar of the title story, who gets more out of life than most of us; and Thomas Mann, opening the heart of a high-school kid in the Midwest. These narratives dazzle on the surface with beautifully rendered settings and vistas, and dig deep psychologically. At every turn, Mary Gordon reveals in her characters� interactions those crucial flashes of understanding that change lives forever. So richly developed it�s hard to believe they fit into novella-size packages, these tales carry us away both as individual stories and as a larger experience of Gordon�s literary mastery and human sympathy.This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide. �
(less)The award-winning author at her storytelling best: four compelling novellas of Americans in Europe and Europeans in America.�In these absorbing and exquisitely made novellas of relationships at home and abroad, both historical and contemporary,
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