News Release

Author Mary Gordon will launch and read from her new book, The Stories of Mary Gordon, on Oct. 1 at the Main Library. The 41-story collection marks a celebratory literary occasion—the gathering in one volume of Gordon’s remarkable short fiction work. From powerful new work to the richly interconnected pieces of “Temporary Shelter,” these stories brilliantly explore a range of characters and situations—from a podiatrist and his dog, to a circle of Irish sisters, to an old woman traveling alone in Italy and an unnamed wife lying beside her husband after a confession has been made in the dark. Powerful and passionate, Gordon probes with exquisite observations the lives of her characters and how the workings of the world—both the enormous events (a vision of her grandmother, crossing the ocean from Ireland) and the intimate moments (a mother holding her son’s hand at preschool)—define and change us.

Small masterpieces of narrative design, The Stories of Mary Gordon offer penetrating insights about what fears lie hidden behind our facades, what family means to us, and what memories we carry with us—each story revealing with deep compassion the ways in which we live both socially and privately.

Gordon is the author of six novels, including Final Payments, Pearl, The Company of Women and her memoir, The Shadow Man. She has received a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches at Barnard College in New York.

The program begins at 1 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium at the Main Library (100 Larkin St.) and is free and open to the public. A book sale and signing will follow.

For more information, please call (415) 557-4277.

Note: Photo of Gordon available for publication.