Blue in Chicago

And Other Stories

By: Bette Howland

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

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)