Old Crimes: and Other Stories

Beloved author Jill McCorkle delivers a collection of masterful stories that are as complex as novels—deeply perceptive, funny, and tragic in equal measure—about crimes large and small.

McCorkle, author of the New York Times bestselling Life After Life and the widely acclaimed Hieroglyphics (“One of our wryest, warmest, wisest storytellers” —Rebecca Makkai), brings us a breathtaking collection of stories that offers an intimate look at the moments when a person’s life changes forever.

Old Crimes delves into the lives of characters who hold their secrets and misdeeds close, even as the past continues to reverberate across generations. And despite the characters’ yearnings for connection, they can’t seem to tell the whole truth: A woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband’s commentary. A telephone lineman strains to communicate with his family even as he feels pushed aside in a digital world. A young couple buys a confessional booth for fun, only to discover the cost of honesty. A family reunion, ripe with treasured memories, takes place amid a secret that will alter all of their futures. Throughout, McCorkle takes us deep into these conflicted and sympathetic characters, puzzling to figure out the meaning of their own lives.

Profoundly moving and unforgettable, for fans of Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and Lily King, the stories in Old Crimes reveal why McCorkle has long been considered a master of the form, probing lives full of great intensity, longing and affection, and deep regret.

“Jill McCorkle has had an extraordinary ear for the music of ordinary life since the beginning of her career, able to work with the voices we know so well to write these stories about what they will not tell us, what they would rather not tell us, what they hope to tell us, what too often goes unsaid. And this collection is a new wonder.” —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel