Near Strangers
Near Strangers is a collection of eight tightly crafted short stories filled with unexpected connections. These stories center on resilient female protagonists and offer a view into queer life in America outside of its major coastal cities. While marginalization, loneliness, and bigotry hover in the distance of Near Strangers, the book’s tone is hopeful and invites readers to reflect on our shared human experience with empathy.
"Near Strangers is a gorgeous collection, full of vivid and memorable characters who find a clarity in making themselves visible and a path forward in wanting to believe that the world is capable of better than what they’ve seen from it. Marian Crotty’s stories expertly balance the sharp realities of cruelty and disappointment with the human capacity for joy, curiosity and finding possibility in the impossible." —Danielle Evans, author of Office of Historical Corrections
"I loved spending time with the narrators of these eight stories, young people who pretend to misanthropy but are actually deeply in love with the world." –Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country
"A beautiful collection, raw and particular and surprising. From the electricity of adolescent lust to a middle school essay on Anne Frank, the throughline in these stories is the deep challenge of intimacy, its aspiration, and its compromise. Crotty’s stories reminded me of how inevitable it is that we fail to reach each other fully and how essential it is to try." —Emma Snyder, Owner, The Ivy Bookshop
"These stories begin with questions about grief, sex, and faith but end with undeniable truths about obsession and delusion. They stare fearlessly into the soft violence of girlhood." —Venita Blackburn, author of Dead in Long Beach, California
What Counts as Love
In these nine stories, Marian Crotty inhabits the lives of people searching for human connection. Her characters, most often young women, are honest, troubled, and filled with longing. The stories are set in Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Persian Gulf, and often touch on themes of addiction, class, sexuality, and gender. What Counts as Love is a poignant, often funny collection that asks us to take it and its characters seriously.
John Simmons Award
Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize
Longlisted for PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize
“With sensual, brave, and wonderfully evocative prose, Marian Crotty explores the seemingly tattered nature of love, taking us deeply into the varied lives of her characters and making us care for them all. They are as alive for me as people I know and root for, and now I’m rooting for Marian Crotty, a compelling and important new voice among us. What Counts as Love is a superb and truly moving collection.”
—Andre Dubus III
“Marian Crotty’s bold, fresh young voice is a welcome addition to the literary scene.”
—Jennifer Egan
“Marian Crotty’s stories are never imprecise. Instead, they bring us a world that is described exactly, down to the smallest details, and their headlong pace keeps us reading breathlessly. She writes about desperadoes of love, caught in moments when desperation may require uncommon bravery. I found this book to be truthful and amazing. It is a beautiful collection.”
—Charles Baxter
“In this riveting debut, Marian Crotty’s characters illuminate the improbably beautiful space between knowing exactly what’s wrong and being powerless to fix it.”
—Alicia Erian
“Crotty’s impressive debut collection is somehow both varied and cohesive. She never writes the same story twice. These sublime stories are reminiscent of Bobbie Ann Mason and Ann Beattie, thoroughly surprising and memorable.” Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
“What Counts as Love brilliantly examines where the seams of people’s lives begin to fray, leaving a poignant ellipses for how they’ll be remade.” Karen Rigby for Foreward Reviews