Brawler

Few collections have an opener as powerful and instantly classic as Brawler’s ‘The Wind’ … For most writers, [it] would be an impossible act to follow, and yet every story here continues a conversation about secrets, hopes, fears and the persistence of love in the face of it all. … Brawler captures a towering talent and follows protagonists caught in the undertow of their messiest emotions. As one character says, “in every human there is both an animal and a god wrestling unto death”. Groff’s bargain with the reader is simple, and impossible to refuse: instead of easy epiphanies, she offers glimpses of acute clarity, meaning or happiness. They will not repeat; but they are enough to carry you through a life. * Financial Times *I’m in awe at how Groff conjures a whole world in each brilliant story. – Claire FullerThese are stories of fracture and survival, of the fulcrums on which lives tilt. On finishing Brawler, the world felt more densely peopled, richer with stories. Groff reminds us of the myriad human galaxies all around us, spinning off brightly into the dark. – Melissa HarrisonYou’ll want to put this short-story collection at the top of your list. The characters you’ll meet here balance responsibility with human fallibility across locations, years, and identities. You’ll walk away feeling more connected to other people, all of whom are simply trying, and with more compassion for yourself. * Harper’s Bazaar *Nine tales with a common theme: characters’ grappling with their better and worse instincts. Groff has a gift for capturing human nature and the compulsions that drive us. * Financial Times *It’s truly a joy to be alive at the same time as someone whose work is so consistently excellent. * Evening Standard *Groff’s latest collection crisscrosses America from the 1950s to the present day in nine stories about troubled mothers, damaged daughters, ruined siblings and marriages that look like they’re heading for the rocks. The opening story, ‘The Wind’, is an emotional gut - punch as a woman attempts to escape her violent cop husband. The moving ‘Brawler’ sees diver Sara ready to fight the world as she copes with her neurotic, ill mother, while the slow poison of privilege infects the lives of alcoholic, unpredictable Chip and his protective sister in the compelling ‘What’s The Time, Mr. Wolf?’. * Daily Mail *In the coiling dread and frank feminism of her work, this incandescent author makes clear with her newest fiction why she won the 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. This audacious collection surprises readers with the vivid lives few of us notice. – Kirkus (starred)A gorgeous collection about families transformed by desperate circumstances … Groff sketches her characters with scalpel-like precision … Each of these heartbreaking tales will linger in the reader’s mind. – Publishers Weekly (starred)Thrillingly complex, wickedly strong girls and women populate the worlds of Groff’s third story collection. In total command of her characters’ nuances and the gray space they find themselves in, Groff shares brief, cryptic yet revealing notes about each story at book’s end, for the cherry on top. – Booklist (starred)

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and two story collections, including Florida. Winner of The Story Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, she has also been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere, and her books have been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she and her husband own the independent bookstore The Lynx.