Andrew Sean Greer

You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town? ANSWER: You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less...

After the death of her beloved twin brother and the abandonment of her long-time lover, Greta Wells undergoes electroshock therapy. Over the course of the treatment, Greta finds herself repeatedly sent to 1918, 1941, and back to the present. Greta is fascinated by her alter egos: in 1941, she is a devoted mother; in 1918, she is a bohemian adulteress. Separated by time and social mores, Greta's lives are achingly similar, fraught with familiar tensions...

Featuring guest editor contributions by the author of "Less," the latest edition of the respected literary annual collects twenty top-selected short stories from the previous year.