Objects of Desire

Stories

By: Clare Sestanovich

Narrated by: Kristen Sieh

“A debut story collection of the rarest kind ... you wish that every single entry could be an entire novel." —Entertainment Weekly

Fresh, intimate stories of women’s lives from an extraordinary new literary voice, laying bare the unexpected beauty and irony in contemporary life

A college freshman, traveling home, strikesup an odd, ephemeral friendship with the couple next to her on the plane. A mother prepares for her son’s wedding, her own life unraveling as his comes together. A long-lost stepbrother’s visit to New York prompts a family’s reckoning with its old taboos. A wife considers the secrets her marriage once contained. An office worker, exhausted by the ambitions of the men around her, emerges into a gridlocked city one afternoon to make a decision.

In these eleven powerful stories, thrilling desire and melancholic yearning animate women’s lives, from the brink of adulthood to the labyrinthine path between twenty and thirty, to middle age, when certain possibilities quietly elapse. Tender, lucid, and piercingly funny, Objects of Desire is a collection pulsing with subtle drama, rich with unforgettable scenes, and alive with moments of recognition each more startling than the last—a spellbinding debut that announces a major talent.

©2021 Clare Sestanovich (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

A PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE NOMINEE• A Best Book of the Summer: The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Lit Hub, Vulture, Esquire, Refinery29, and The Millions • One of Electric Literature's Best Short Story Collections of the Year • Clare Sestanovich was selected as one of The National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" for Objects of Desire

“Smart and accomplished . . . Sestanovich’s prose is poised and understated, sensorily precise . . . [Her characters] are wryly astute in their assessments of others; it is a pleasure to see the world through their sharp eyes. Sestanovich’s gift is to make ordinary moments shine brightly.” —Kirstin Valdez Quade, The New York Times Book Review

“With Sestanovich, the everyday is a little shinier. Objects of Desire is filled with [the] kind of details that make up the world . . . both the vivid and the mundane . . . haunting." —Clare Marie Schneider, NPR

“Hilarious . . . deadpan . . . In Objects of Desire, we meet a large, angsty, mostly privileged cast of characters who nonetheless seem to reflect a society that’s been knocked back on its heels. Sestanovich is an elegant writer whose stories deftly capture the foods, clothes and customs of contemporary life.” —Ann Levin, Associated Press

This was a whole audible credit, though. Why?

I like to think that I’m pretty, I don’t know, open minded, for lack of a better word or phrase. However, this book right here kinda got under my skin. It sucks. I hate to say it like that but it does. There were no real plots except in the last story, Satisfaction. I kept trying to understand the significance of things but found none. There were loads of details for detail’s sake. She tells us about picturing a piece of paper in all these different places. I don’t care! There were turned words and phrases, seemingly, simply for the sake of them. She ends most of the stories on these random notes and I’m left thinking, WTH? I don’t usually write reviews but this one low-key pissed me off. I had to say something. I pre-ordered this! I know it’s someone’s work and maybe it means a lot to her but I came away annoyed and pissed that I used a whole audible credit for this. The narrator did her thing so I guess that’s something.