With pathos and insight, each of the sixteen accomplished authors—among them Lynn Freed, Karen Bender, May-lee Chai, Gina Frangello, Cris Mazza, and Amina Gautier—featured in Love in the Time of Time’s Up skillfully explores the complexities of desire, intention, and what it means to be a woman in the era of Me Too and Time’s Up.
From the fraught, sexually charged groves of academia and elevators of corporate America, to the imagined diary entries of Brett Kavanaugh and the tragicomic travails of a woman swiping right on Tinder in order to dispense advice to men whose profiles she finds lacking, these stories offer a blend of humor and horror, victory and heartache, righteous anger and rueful recrimination. It’s a collection that’s sure to leave a mark on readers’ minds—and earn a place in their hearts.
"This complex and hotly contemporary collection of short fiction compiled by Sneed explores the people and stories behind the #TimesUp movement, which dovetailed with #MeToo and the entire new wave of cultural feminism aimed at ending harassment and abuse in power-imbalanced relationships. Some of the characters in these stories are mistreated blatantly and egregiously, while others aren't aware of the full scope of the harm against them until many years after the fact. Multiple stories chronicle sexual harassment or abuse in academia. Many pieces follow a child's learning of mistreatment of their mother. One story offers a woman's commentary for each of the profiles she swipes past on a dating app. Another imagines a transcript of Brett Kavanaugh's Catholic confessionals from the most monumental years of his life. At every turn, the 17 stories in this collection chronicle the effects of harassment and abuse, from the initial trauma to the long-term changes a survivor endures. The book reads like a time capsule, sure to help readers make sense of the cultural moment." --from Booklist.
“This superb anthology offers a kaleidoscopic view of the sometimes savage and always shifting dynamics between the sexes. These seventeen stories deftly explore everything from intergenerational trauma to the art of the online swipe in ways that are thought-provoking, intimate, and unnervingly moving.”
— Dawn Raffel, author of Further Adventures in a Restless Universe and The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies
“Throw out any preconceived notions you might have about this book. Yes, it's full of rage—the kind that makes you think, the kind that makes you squirm, the kind that makes you keep reading—but it's also full of compassion, dark humor, startling insights and unexpected moments of grace. Best of all, it's full of unforgettable short stories by a dazzlingly gifted group of writers.”
— Miles Harvey, bestselling author of The Island of Lost Maps and The King of Confidence
“Urgent, necessary, messy, crystal-clear, sometimes funny, often horrifying: Love in the Time of Time's Up is a powerful set of stories on the unbalances and bruises of assault, harassment, and exploitation. I'm so glad this book exists and that we have such an excellent reckoning to bad behavior.”
— Juan Martinez, author of Best Worst American and the forthcoming novel, Extended Stay
“This wonderful and wise collection tugged at all my emotions. I laughed, clenched my fists in outrage, and nodded in recognition. With nuance and sensitivity, these authors capture what it feels like to be a woman on the receiving end of the gaze, the grab, and the unwelcome and uncomfortable gesture.”
— Christi Clancy, author of The Second Home and Shoulder Season
“An anthology of stories told through the eyes and voices of a diverse presentation of women characters, some coping with events of the past that impact their present lives, others confronted with events in the present that will surely impact their futures. A soulful and compelling collection that speaks powerfully to the culture of our time.”
— Eric Charles May, author of Bedrock Faith
