The women and girls in Danielle Lazarin's deeply affecting debut story collection are desperate for connection, whether to family members or friends or acquaintances thrown together by circumstance. There are also a few love interests, but this is not a book about romantic love-it's about the loneliness that is a companion to so much of the love we undertake. -Esquire, The 27 Most Anticipated Books of 2018

Lazarin's exceptional debut collection digs deep into the lives of women, telling complex stories of loss, hope, and joy. . . . [Back Talk] is confident and exhilarating; this auspicious collection is uniformly excellent. -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Brilliant and tender . . . With poignant imagery and a fresh voice, Lazarin portrays these women honestly and relatably. Her exceptional craftsmanship speaks to the heart, as she paints these tales with empathy and a compassion that extends to all humankind. -Booklist (starred review)

Sensitive, intricate, and quietly powerful, Lazarin's stories give voice to women learning to live on their own terms. -Kirkus (starred review)

One of Library Journal's New Writers To Watch

Danielle Lazarin's Back Talk is deceptively quiet but packs a powerful punch-much like the girls and women in its pages. The stories in this collection batter at the boundaries of female desire-not just for sex, but for intimacy, for visibility, for agency. They talk back to the idea that stories about women are 'domestic,' burrowing deep to find wildness and a smoldering fury beneath. The best collection I've read in years, from a phenomenal new talent. -Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

The stories in Back Talk are not only fierce and unflinching in their clear-eyed portrayal of women and girls, they are also tender and compassionate, imbued with a deep longing. Lazarin is a sophisticated writer and her remarkable debut offers us subtle but profound truths about growing up, moving forward, and finding ourselves. -Edan Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California

I fell in love with these elegant, beguiling tales. They're about young women, but they are for everyone, whatever gender, whatever age, so universal is their poignant take on life and loving and loneliness, too. Reading Lazarin's writing is like having a great friend in the room, telling you something that you know you need to hear, and telling it to you brilliantly. -Robin Black, nationally bestselling author of Life Drawing

These are wonderful stories-sparkling, witty, and tender, riding that sweet spot between urbane and vulnerable, between hilarity and heartbreak-all those impossible contradictions that remind us of what love is like. Lazarin's astonishing insight and craftsmanship put me in mind of short story masters like Beattie and Baxter. I think she's destined for the big leagues. -Dan Chaon, New York Times bestselling author of Ill Will

Back Talk offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of the contemporary family in a state of creative destruction, flying apart and simultaneously reconstituting itself in new forms. Danielle Lazarin guides us through the varied permutations of her extended, blended families with insightful wit, surpassing empathy and wry wisdom. -Peter Ho Davies, author of The Fortunes

Misfits and mess-ups, dreamers and delinquents, kids chafing at adolescence and adults failing at parenthood-it's easy to see yourself in Danielle Lazarin's characters. But these stories, like all good stories, aren't a mirror: they're a window that shows us the whole world. -Rumaan Alam, author of Rich and Pretty

I absolutely loved this book-from the first page to the last, this collection is stunning for its insight into the lives of young women, revelatory for its finely tuned prose, and unforgettable for its humor and tenderness. I will return to these stories again and again. I envy the reader who gets to discover Danielle La