Elizabeth Crane

A visionary and profound new collection from innovative author Elizabeth Crane Throughout her body of work, Elizabeth Crane's literary vision has always been singular and innovative, twisting form and bending reality into new universes. Her latest collection, That May Not Mean What You Think, explores themes of aging and youth, gender and discrimination, and sex and love. In "Training Module," Crane takes the structure and protocol of workplace harassment prevention training and turns it on its head; "The Box" tells the story of a woman trying to recover from divorce with the help of a literal unicorn; and "The Youngs" follows a group of teenagers experiencing loss for the first time, clinging to the belief that they'll live forever. Across these delightfully weird and disarmingly truthful stories, American culture is refracted through humor and heart, asking readers to consider their complicity and to imagine new possibilities of participating in a better future.

A beloved, smart, and bold story collection surges back to life in a new print edition Hailed as "revolutionary fiction," When the Messenger Is Hot gleefully upends the short-story form, rendering the absurdities and possibilities of modern urban life with disarming humor and keen perception as Crane weaves through grief and womanhood. The women in Elizabeth Crane's world are fierce and kind, damaged and optimistic. They are jilted lovers, absent daughters, twelve-steppers, and smart-asses, recovering from loss, addiction, or betrayal. From a woman who decides to live on the rooftop of her friend's apartment (why not?), to a writer whose identity is compromised by the actress who portrays her, to a daughter who believes her deceased mother is still alive and living at the bus depot, these characters experience love and loss in a way that is both profoundly universal and uniquely theirs.

Rachel Cusk meets Nora Ephron in this intimate and evolving portrait about the end of a marriage and how life can fall apart and be rebuilt in wonderful and surprising ways One minute Elizabeth Crane and her husband of fifteen years are fixing up their old house in Upstate New York, finally setting down roots after stints in Chicago, Texas, and Brooklyn, when his unexpected admission--I'm not happy--changes everything. Suddenly she finds herself separated and in couples therapy, living in an apartment in the city with an old friend and his kid. It's understood that the apartment and bonus family are temporary, but the situation brings unexpected comfort and much-needed healing for wounds even older than her marriage. Crafting the story as the very events chronicled are unfolding, Crane writes from a place of guarded possibility, capturing through vignettes and collected moments a semblance of the real-time practice of healing. At turns funny and dark, with moments of poignancy, This Story Will Change is an unexpected and moving portrait of a woman in transformation, a chronicle of how even the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are bound to change.

"Twenty-two often witty, sometimes-disquieting short stories . . . Autobiography and imagination walking hand in hand into the sunset." --Kirkus ReviewsAn Electric Literature Best Short Story Collection of 2017Through her three story collections and two novels, Elizabeth Crane's singular literary vision has created worlds of characters standing boldly in the face of their complicated circumstances. And that has never been truer than in her new collection, Turf. The end of the world as seen through a young couple in Brooklyn, who find a baby in a bucket on their front step; a group of geniuses who meet every Wednesday, able to unlock all the secrets of the universe except for the unknowable mystery of love; a woman and her dog walker whose friendship is uprooted by an incident at the park; these are dark, intriguing vistas explored in Crane's glowing collection. For as places change, and people come and go, these stories in Turf remind us that it is the unchanging nature of the human heart that connects us all."[Crane's] stories are fun and bizarre and wonderful and so, so sneaky . . . Elizabeth Crane mines the everyday and reveals what we're missing. It's unsettling. It's hilarious. It's . . . beyond. And you just know she's having a great time, because suddenly you are, too." --Lindsay Hunter, Electric Literature"A daring piece of literature delicately teetering between story and observation . . . Crane demonstrates insight into our deepest fears and desires and what makes people tick." --Publishers Weekly"Crane's imagination is delightful, ebullient . . . One thing for sure . . . it's never boring." --Foreword Reviews

A witty and irresistible story of a mother and daughter regarding each other through the looking glass of time, grief, and forgiveness. In two beautifully counterpoised narratives, two women--mother and daughter--try to make sense of their own lives by revisiting what they know about each other. The History of Great Things tells the entwined stories of Lois, a daughter of the Depression Midwest who came to New York to transform herself into an opera star, and her daughter, Elizabeth, an aspiring writer who came of age in the 1970s and '80s in the forbidding shadow of her often-absent, always larger-than-life mother. In a tour de force of storytelling and human empathy, Elizabeth chronicles the events of her mother's life, and in turn Lois recounts her daughter's story--pulling back the curtain on lifelong secrets, challenging and interrupting each other, defending their own behavior, brandishing or swallowing their pride, and, ultimately, coming to understand each other in a way that feels both extraordinary and universal. The History of Great Things is a novel about a mother and daughter who are intimately connected and not connected enough; it will make readers laugh and cry and wonder how we become the adults we always knew we should--even if we're not always adults our parents understand.

A funny and moving debut novel that follows four generations of a singularly weird American family, all living under one roof, as each member confronts a moment of crisis in a narrative told through a uniquely quirky, charming, and unforgettable voice. Acclaimed short story writer Elizabeth Crane, well known to public radio listeners for her frequent and captivating contributions to WBEZ Chicago's Writer's Block Party, delivers a sublime, poignant, and often hilarious first novel, perfect for fans of Jessica Anya Blau's The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals." Crane has a distinctive and eccentric voice that is consistent and riveting." --New York Times Book Review