Clare Sestanovich

Clare Sestanovich’s stories compelled me like gravity, and offered sharp, surprising, singular bursts of grace. Her characters are observed with wry, prism-gazed tenderness; sketched deftly and persuasively with just a few perfect strokes. The details go off like bombs. These stories know strange, important truths about what it feels like to be alive.

— Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams

Sestanovich’s elegant prose takes seriously the quiet unrest that can ravage a life, and makes room for the pleasure and discovery that can be found in that ruin.

— Raven Leilani, author of Luster

Astonishing—one of the best story collections I’ve read in a long time. The stories in Objects of Desire are subtle and sophisticated, written with sensitive lucidity and warmth; their emotional effects are brought about naturally, almost indirectly, and one leaves each of the stories feeling a little homesick. I feel like I've found a new favorite writer.

— Brandon Taylor, author of the Booker Prize finalist Real Life

These stories are wickedly perceptive—Sestanovich precisely measures the distance between how people think of themselves and how the world reads them. A mesmerizing, exquisite debut.

— Dana Spiotta, author of Eat the Document and Wayward

Objects of Desire is one of those rare collections that is both deeply emotional and affecting and just so much fun to read. Clare Sestanovich writes a sentence sharp enough to cut yourself on—magnificent.

— Nathan Englander, author of Dinner at the Center of the Earth

Objects of Desire is a marvel. With pointillist precision, Clare Sestanovich captures the apparently inconsequential decisions on which a life turns: the phone call made or ignored; the email replied to or archived; the invitation accepted or declined. Her observation of ordinary moments is transformative — I loved this book.

— Miranda Popkey, author of Topics of Conversation