Product Review

A Booklist Best New Book
A Vogue.com Best Book
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2019 so far
A Kirkus 2019 Best Fiction Writer to Discover
Kirkus 2019 Best Short Fiction

"Loving, lacerating sketches." ―Harper's

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.