Blue in Chicago

And Other Stories

By: Bette Howland

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Blue in Chicago collects together the sharp, bittersweet stories of Bette Howland and restores to our libraries an extraordinarily gifted writer who was recognised as a major talent before all but disappearing from public view for decades, until nearly the end of her life.

Bette Howland was an outsider: an intellectual from a working-class neighbourhood in Chicago, a divorcée and single mother, to the disapproval of her family, an artist chipped away at by poverty and perfection. Each of these sides of her life plays a shaping role in her work. Mining her most precarious struggles for her art in each of these stories, she chronicles the fears and hopes of her generation.

Blue in Chicago: And Other Stories introduces UK listeners to a wry, brilliant observer and a writer of great empathy and sly, joyous humour.

Published in the US under the title Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.

©2020 Bette Howland (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"If there's a Howland bandwagon [and there should be], hold me a seat, or I'll stand. No problem, I'll stand." (Paris Review)

"The work of a woman who has invested her life in her art and who will, I think be remembered as one of the significant writers of her generation." (Saul Bellow)

"Her prose is cooler than a cocktail and sharper than a Japanese knife. It’s zippy, witty and sometimes deeply sad: Nora Ephron meets Lorrie Moore, which is about as good as it gets." (Observer)