ELIZABETH CRANE - We Only Know So Much

THURSDAY  JULY 19  7p

BookPeople
& American Short Fiction Present ELIZABETH CRANE
Speaking and Signing
We Only Know So Much

Jean Copeland, an emotionally withdrawn wife and mother of two, has taken a secret lover—only to lose him in a moment of tragedy that leaves her reeling. Her husband, Gordon, is oblivious, distracted by the fear that he's losing his most prized asset: his memory. Daughter Priscilla (a pill since birth—don't get us started) is talking about clothes, or TV, or whatever, and hatching a plan to extend her maddening reach to all of America. Nine-year-old Otis is torn between his two greatest loves: crossword puzzles and his new girlfriend.

At the back of the house, grandfather Theodore is in the early throes of Parkinson's disease. (And he's fine with it—as long as they continue to let him walk the damn dog alone.) And Vivian, the family's ninety-eight-year-old matriarch, is a razor-sharp grande dame who suffers no fools...and still harbors secret dreams of her own.

ELIZABETH CRANE is the author of three collections of short stories, When the Messenger is Hot, All this Heavenly Glory, and You Must Be This Happy to Enter.  Her work has also been featured in publications including Other Voices, fivechapters, Ecotone, Nerve, Washington Square, New York Stories, Sycamore Review, Mississippi Review, Florida Review, Eclipse, Bridge, Sonora Review, the Chicago Reader, the Believer, McSweeney’s Future Dictionary of America, and several anthologies including The Best Underground Fiction, Loser, Altared and The Show I’ll Never Forget.  Her stories have also been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts.  

Acquired by Badgerdog in 2003 and relaunched in March 2006, Austin-based American Short Fiction publishes short fiction that is wild, heartfelt, innovative, new. The magazine introduces you to writers you should know this minute, and stories that'll stick with you for a lifetime. Work from ASF has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, New Stories of the Southwest, and Dzanc's Best of the Web.