Help Yourself

Help Yourself

Three scalding stories from the bestselling author of AMERICAN WIFE

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Sittenfeld's wryly hilarious and insightful new collection, HELP YOURSELF, illuminates human experience and gracefully upends our assumptions about class and race, envy and disappointment, gender dynamics and celebrity.

Suburban friends fall out after a racist encounter at a birthday party is caught on video and posted on Facebook; an illustrious Manhattan film crew are victims of their own snobbery when they underestimate a pre-school teacher from the Mid-West; and a group of young writers fight about love and narrative style as they compete for a prestigious bursary.

Connecting each of these three stories is Sittenfeld's truthful yet merciless eye, as her characters stagger from awkwardness, to humiliation and, if they're lucky, to reconciliation. Full of tenderness and compassion, this dazzling collection celebrates our humanity in all its pettiness and glory.

Praise for CURTIS SITTENFELD:

'Nobody else writes with such precison and amusement about the absolute inability of men and women to understand each other' RED MAGAZINE
'You won't want these stories to end' REESE WITHERSPOON
'Perfect miniatures in deadpan prose' GUARDIAN
'Clear-eyed and compulsive' MAIL ON SUNDAY

© Curtis Sittenfeld 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Reviews

  • Sharp yet understated, assured but self-questioning, Sittenfeld take on race, sexism and the wokerati
    EVENING STANDARD

About the author

Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling Rodham. Other novels include American Wife and Prep, both bestsellers and longlisted for the Orange Prize, The Man of My Dreams, Sisterland, Eligible, and the acclaimed short story collections You Think It, I'll Say It and Help Yourself. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Oprah Magazine and the New York Times magazine. Sittenfeld was also the guest editor for the 2020 Best American Short Stories anthology. She lives with her family in the American Midwest. Follow her on Twitter @CSittenfeld

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