The award-winning author at her storytelling best: four compelling novellas of Americans in Europe and Europeans in America.

In these absorbing and exquisitely made novellas of relationships at home and abroad, both historical and contemporary, we meet the ferocious Simone Weil during her final days as a transplant to New York City; a vulnerable American grad student who escapes to Italy after her first, compromising love affair; the charming Irish liar of the title story, who gets more out of life than most of us; and Thomas Mann, opening the heart of a high-school kid in the Midwest. These narratives dazzle on the surface with beautifully rendered settings and vistas, and dig deep psychologically. At every turn, Mary Gordon reveals in her characters' interactions those crucial flashes of understanding that change lives forever. So richly developed it's hard to believe they fit into novella-size packages, these tales carry us away both as individual stories and as a larger experience of Gordon's literary mastery and human sympathy.

This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

• We started tracking this book on May 23, 2014.
• This book was $10.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 94 times in the past 3,980 days.
• The current price of this book is $4.99 last checked 8 hours ago.
• The lowest price to date was $4.99 last reached on April 13, 2025.
• This book has been $4.99 4 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.99 last reached on April 30, 2018.
• This book has been $14.99 2 times since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• Literature & FictionLiterary FictionLGBTQ+ Literary Fiction

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 306 Pages
• File Size: 11 KB