SHELF LIFE OF HAPPINESS
by Virginia Pye
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Pub Date Oct 23 2018 | Archive Date Oct 26 2018
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Description
In these bittersweet, compelling stories, Virginia Pye's characters in Shelf Life of Happiness long for that most-elusive of states: happiness. A young skateboarder reaches across an awesome gap to reconnect with his disapproving father; an elderly painter executes one final, violent gesture to memorialize his work; a newly married writer battles the urge to implode his happy marriage; and a confused young man falls for his best friend's bride and finally learns to love. In each case, Pye's characters aim to be better people as they strive for happiness--and some even reap the sweet reward of achieving it.
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
“The characters in Virginia Pye’s Shelf Life of Happiness experience their lives as a tangle they urgently need to understand before it’s too late. They’re experts on how to keep their hearts in reserve, and they recognize the ache of their own shame in their fear that perhaps those lesser versions of themselves they so often glimpse are who they really are, and yet all they want is to access the appreciative tenderness that’s waiting for them within their best selves. These are deft and moving stories.”—Jim Shephard
Marketing Plan
Selected Praise & Honors for the Writing of Virginia Pye
Best Book of 2015, Richmond Times Dispatch
A May 2013 Indie Next Pick
Virginia Literary Awards Finalist in Fiction
“Gripping, convincing, and heartbreaking, Dreams of the Red Phoenix is powerfully evocative of the complexities of life in 1930's China. A real page-turner and thought-provoker -- wonderful.”—Gish Jen
“Riveting!”—Library Journal
“[I]ntricate and fascinating….River of Dust is mysterious, exotic, creepy — everything ignorant foreigners used to believe China to be. A fine journey, well worth the effort.”—Carolyn See, The Washington Post
“It’s not a happy story, but Pye tells it skillfully, her complex plot drawing me in so completely that I stayed up far too late one night finishing the book so I wouldn’t fall asleep wondering what happened to the Reverend and Grace.”—Los Angeles Review of Books
"Terrific, tremendous, wonderful...a strong, beautiful, deep book."—Annie Dillard
“A tale of idealism and courage, deceit and treachery, Dreams of the Red Phoenix blends religion, family, geopolitics and history into a hearty, heartwarming and heart-rending feast of fact-based fiction, one inspired by Pye’s imagination and rendered with care and love.”—The Richmond Times-Dispatch
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781941209820 |
| PRICE | $17.95 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Mel R, Reviewer
Wow. Here is a collection of rather stunning short stories, spanning varied ideals and lives, each succeeding in quietly unsettling my mind. The writing is so sure of itself, it was quite satisfying to get to the end of each story. Not to oversimplify, they are about: a man meeting his dying friend to act as best man in his Reno wedding; a woman traveling with her children in Italy; an art dealer (and a stray dog); an aspiring skater, his tag-along brother, and their condescending father; the brutal murder of a family on New Year’s, and a trip to NYC; burying a rotting bird on Easter; a middle aged artist and his “big” break (in his work and from his family); a young woman in Cambridge struggling to find a passion for work, and sticking near to her hometown & her aging parents; and a man and a woman, each married to other people, not so quietly carrying out an affair.
Clifford G, Media/Journalist
I read and enjoyed Pye’s earlier books, River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix, both historical novels set in China. Because of my own familiarity with China, I was drawn to these stories of conflict between American missionaries and their Chinese counterparts, set against a backdrop of enormous changes taking place in Chinese society.
