Oregon Book Awards finalist
Lee Montgomery鈥檚 surprising stories capture moments in women鈥檚 lives when, pushed to the edge, they teeter between the complete bewilderment of loss and the lurking possibility of found. These are not stories about diets, designer jeans, and bad boyfriends; these are stories that dismantle the fabric of convention to reveal the raw interior worlds of women who have come of age on the heels of Betty Crocker and in the hem of Betty Friedan.
Montgomery鈥檚 characters blow drugs and boys, advise friends who are dying of aids about pennies in penny loafers, write letters to Caroline Kennedy, and fall in love with movie stars. Some lose themselves to ambivalence while contemplating motherhood; others 铿乶d themselves soothed when, after hearing of the sudden death of a dear friend, they seduce a stranger.
In the story 鈥淲e Americans,鈥 a woman abandoned by her husband grows so vulnerable, she internalizes tv news tragedies by developing hives in the shapes of foreign countries. In the title story, Hannah, a speed freak working the graveyard shift in a nursing home, falls in love with a quadriplegic who, void of feeling in his limbs, feels things that Hannah cannot. In 鈥淎valanche,鈥 an editor to movie stars in Beverly Hills struggles with how to reconcile her own story with the fairy-tale endings of celebrity culture.
Tender, poignant, and at times hilarious, the women in Whose World Is This? turn common notions of love, compassion, and tradition upside down as they show us how vulnerability, although dangerous, is what makes life astonishingly beautiful and reality strangely unreal.
鈥淕utsy, unflinchingly honest, and full of raw beauty, these stories navigate the troubled terrain of abandonment, addiction, betrayal, and hard-edged love.鈥濃擜nn Cummins, author, Red Ant House and Yellowcake
鈥淭hese edgy stories live and breathe in the space between a woman and her body, a world which Lee Montgomery offers with sharp insight. The gap hurts鈥攁nd glows鈥攖he way certain lives do, as we sabotage ourselves and then shoulder the work toward redemption. Whose World Is This? is a terrific collection.鈥濃擱on Carlson, author, A Kind of Flying and Five Skies
鈥淟ee Montgomery writes bleakly funny stories that gouge the veneer of the ordinary to show what really powers a day, a decision, a life. Her characters seem to say, 鈥榊ou want generosity of spirit? I鈥橪L show you generosity of SPIRIT.鈥 The title story with its Denis Johnson quality is a stunner鈥攁 drugged-out young woman falls for a handsome man she takes care of in a nursing home鈥攆illed with startling effects. Other characters recount their meager brushes with greatness (with Caroline Kennedy鈥檚 jeans, with the brother of the biggest pop star in the world). Montgomery intensifies out-of-control lives until, against the odds, they make a kind of sense.鈥濃擜my Hempel, author, The Collected Stories
鈥淟ee Montgomery can make us laugh even while she breaks our hearts. Whose World Is This? is a 铿乪rce, witty, beautifully written collection.鈥濃擬argot Livesey, author, Eva Moves the Furniture and Banishing Verona
