Bette Howland

A Booklist Best New Book
A Vogue.com Best Book
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2019 so far

"Loving, lacerating sketches." —Harper's

"This story collection reinstates a long-overlooked artist of live-wire incisiveness, shredding wit, and improbable beauty." —Kirkus, starred review

Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage restores to the literary canon an extraordinarily gifted writer, who was recognized as a major talent before all but disappearing from public view for decades, until nearly the end of her life. Bette Howland herself was an outsider―an intellectual from a working-class neighborhood in Chicago; a divorcée and single mother, to the disapproval of her family; an artist chipped away at by poverty and perfection. Each of these facets plays a central role in her work. Mining her deepest emotions for her art, she chronicles the tension of her generation. Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage introduces a new generation of readers to a wry, brilliant observer and a writer of great empathy and sly, joyous humor.