The Complexities of Intimacy

Dark, rich, rewarding stories that present the American family as a Heironymous Bosch painting.

The stories in The Complexities of Intimacy offer a surreal and darkly comedic exploration of that most complex of all institutions—the nuclear family. A breathtaking stylist, Mary Caponegro imbues her collection with startling details: a sister with an anatomical secret, a brother who invents a hammock from a harp, and precocious children who choose their own parents. Buoyed by her arch, Jamesian prose and psychological tone, Caponegro’s stories are as delicately intricate as the fragile and difficult relationships they describe.

Mary Caponegro is the author of The Star Café, The Complexities of Intimacy, and All Fall Down, among other collections of short fiction. Her stories have been anthologized in The Anchor Book of New American Fiction, The Italian American Reader, and Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana. Born in Brooklyn, she has lived in Italy, and now resides in New York’s Hudson Valley, where she is currently the Richard B. Fisher Family Professor in Literature and Writing at Bard College and contributing editor of Conjunctions.