<p>The triumphant, long-awaited return of a writer of remarkable gifts: in this collection of richly imagined stories—her first new work in twenty years—the master of short fiction delivers a diverse suite of stories about men and women confronting their vulnerabilities in times of transition and challenge.</p><p>Beginning in the 1980s, Elizabeth Tallent’s work, appeared in some of our most prestigious literary publications, including<em>The New Yorker, Esquire,</em> and <em>Harper’s.</em> Marked by its quiet power and emotional nuance, her fiction garnered widespread praise.</p><p>Now, at long last, Tallent returns with a new collection of diverse, thematically linked, and deeply powerful stories that confirm her enduring gift for capturing relationships at their moment of transformation: marriages breaking apart, people haunted by memories of old love and reaching haltingly toward new futures. <em>Mendocino Fire</em> explore moments of fracture and fragmentation; it limns the wilderness of our inner psyche and brilliantly evokes the electric tension of deep emotion. In these pages, Tallent explores expectations met and thwarted, and our never-ending quest to avoid being alone.</p><p>With this breathtaking collection, Elizabeth Tallent cements her rightful place in the literary pantheon beside her contemporaries Lorrie Moore, Ann Beattie, and Louise Erdrich. Visceral and surprising, profound yet elemental,<em>Mendocino Fire</em> is a welcome visit with a wise and familiar friend.</p>