PRAISE FOR
The Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman
“Mattison’s voice is intelligent, spare, and without pretense. She lays out Daisy’s story in a way that makes it seem as if not much is happening, while quietly weaving in four or five intriguing subplots, including a murder mystery, a rent strike, and, toward the end, September 11. All these stories press in on Daisy in some meaningful way, each playing a role in her quest to come to terms with herself.”
—Washington Post Book World
“[A] quietly splendid novel. . . . Alice Mattison has an instinct for the nuance of small moments between people; she captures each subtle shift in Daisy’s character with quirky insight.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Mattison’s writing gives the humdrum an edge we didn’t know it possessed.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Mattison beautifully describes the arc of the affair, as Daisy slips from woman in charge to woman in need. In Daisy, she creates a complicated woman who shows us self-discovery is a never-ending journey.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The confidential voice of this novel’s complex main character draws readers into [her] world with an almost magnetic power.”
—Boston Herald
PRAISE FOR
The Book Borrower
“In deceptively quiet, guileless prose, she has described the mind-numbing routine of child care and the fraught, complex relations of men and women. Only Margaret Atwood (in Cat’s Eye) has written as knowingly about the friendship between women. Emotionally wrenching, beautifully realized work.”
—New York Times Book Review
“This excellent novel weaves the story of a 1921 trolley strike. . . . Mattison is concerned with the small decisions and coincidences that alter the course of our lives. Are they accidents, or impulses born of something deeper? Mattison’s observations are so minutely compelling that each one feels like a shiny object, once lost but found unexpectedly.”
—The New Yorker
“Extraordinary.”
—Washington Post Book World
PRAISE FOR
Hilda and Pearl
“Forgiving and wise, Hilda and Pearl is a memorable novel about love’s resilience.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Engaging . . . intuitive. . . . Mattison takes no shortcuts, but leads us down the long road her characters travel in learning to accept and endure.”
—Boston Globe
“Small fireworks of surprise detonate at intervals in this compelling narrative.”
—Publishers Weekly
PRAISE FOR
Men Giving Money, Women Yelling
“Alice Mattison is a charmer. She’s one of those uncommon writers who is genuinely tickled by the ids and egos they commit to paper, and her characters bask—rather than squint—in the sunshine of her affectionate scrutiny. Men Giving Money, Women Yelling (is there an award for book title of the season?) is Mattison’s third collection of short fiction, and it’s crammed with characters—teachers, lawyers, social workers—who pop cleanly, if a bit frantically, off the page.”
—New York Times Book Review
“If Mattison’s spry language and light touch belie her careful framing of events, they also blithely pave the way for her finely hewn endings, which in almost every story capture the unspoken charm and mystery of a character or a moment.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Mattison treats each of her loony, alternately bored and besotted characters with tenderness.”
—The New Yorker