Devotion

An affair with a much older voice teacher leads a young girl into early marriage, leaving behind her Brooklyn family and friends for a new life shadowed by her husband's Old World expectations. Decades later, with her child now pursuing an art career in New York, mother and son come to terms with the quiet intimacy they've both resented and cultivated. With shades of Woolf and Bellow, Devotion is a story of family, solitude, and self-expression, where old and new values ripple across generations.

Michelle Herman is the author of LIKE A SONG: ESSAYS (Outpost19, 2014) and STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES (longlisted for the 2014 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay). She is also the author of the novels DOG (Outpost19, 2016) and MISSING; the collection of novellas A NEW AND GLORIOUS LIFE; and the essay collection THE MIDDLE OF EVERYTHING; as well as a book for children, A GIRL'S GUIDE TO LIFE. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she has lived in Columbus, Ohio, for many years, where she directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Ohio State.