In Helen on 86th Street and Other Stories, girls grow into women and women become wise in portraits filled with biting humor and small but hard-earned victories. One girl makes a burnt offering of letters written to her wayward father, while another struggles to leave her dying father and face adult life. Women navigate the rocky shoals of adultery, illness, and infertility as they make their way in an unsteady world, where the heart is easily betrayed and loyalty is rarely a straightforward matter.

Wendi Kaufman writes intimately of daughters, mothers, and lovers, of first loves and difficult truths. This is the long-awaited celebration of a wry, unblinking, and ultimately triumphant literary voice.