Five Tuesdays in Winter

by Lily King

Lily King is one of my favorite writers. I discovered her during the pandemic thanks to my friend Heather, who loaned me several of her books.

Five Tuesdays in winter is her new short story collection, and I listened to it as an audiobook. I loved that there were five different narrators! All of the stories are centered around families – either told from the point of view of the parent or the point of view of an adolescent narrator.

Likes: King is a lyrical writer. Even throwaway sentences are beautiful when they come from her. She is a close observer of human nature and her characters ring true to me. The collection has a little bit of heart-warming, a little bit of surreal, and a generous helping of people struggling their way through difficult times – a variety that kept me engaged. Like many short story collections, it was easy to put down and then pick up again.

Dislikes: two of the stories toward the end are REALLY short – I thought they were too short to do much. And it annoyed me that the story told by a German mother was narrated in a German accent.

FYI: some of the stories deal with mental illness, attempted suicide, and alcoholism. There are scenes of sexual assault. Parental death or abandonment feature in a few of the stories.