Objects of Desire

''Sestanovich’s elegant prose takes seriously the quiet unrest that can ravage a life'' - Raven Leilani, author of Luster
A Best Book of the Summer in The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly,Vogue, Esquire and Refinery29

A university student is flying home to visit her family when she strikes up an odd, ephemeral friendship with the couple next to her on the plane. A mother prepares for her son''s wedding, her own life unravelling as his comes together. A long-lost stepbrother''s visit prompts a family''s reckoning with its old taboos.

In these eleven powerful stories, thrilling desire and melancholic yearning animate women’s lives – from the brink of adulthood, to the labyrinthine path between twenty and thirty, to middle age, when certain possibilities quietly lapse. Tender, lucid and piercingly funny, Objects of Desire is a collection pulsing with subtle drama, rich with unforgettable scenes, and alive with moments of recognition, each more startling than the last - a spellbinding debut that announces a major talent.

''A debut story collection of the rarest kind . . . you wish that every single entry could be an entire novel.'' — Entertainment Weekly

Clare Sestanovich named one of The National Book Foundation''s ''5 under 35''.