Short stories about the universal need to be loved, from “a quietly gorgeous writer” (The New York Times Book Review).   In “Pelican Song,” a thirty-year-old modern dancer who moonlights as a movie ticket taker visits her parent’s picturesque home to discover that her stepfather has begun mistreating her too-accommodating mother. “Horse” follows maladjusted honeymooners in Atlantic City whose romantic weekend is saved from emotional catastrophe. A holiday in New York City turns from shopping sprees to a young girl’s sharp discovery of her father’s secret life in “Rome.”   With an elegant blend of humor and pathos, Mary-Beth Hughes captures the turning points in relationships that make us wonder how well we really know those we love. Double Happiness is a revealing meditation on the fragility of contentment and the lengths we must go to in order to sustain it, and “[an] intensely moving collection” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).   “Excellent.” —The New Yorker

Short stories about the universal need to be loved, from “a quietly gorgeous writer” (The New York Times Book Review).   In “Pelican Song,” a thirty-year-old modern dancer who moonlights as a movie ticket taker visits her parent’s picturesque home to discover that her stepfather has begun mistreating her too-accommodating mother. “Horse” follows maladjusted honeymooners in Atlantic City whose romantic weekend is saved from emotional catastrophe. A holiday in New York City turns from shopping sprees to a young girl’s sharp discovery of her father’s secret life in “Rome.”   With an elegant blend of humor and pathos, Mary-Beth Hughes captures the turning points in relationships that make us wonder how well we really know those we love. Double Happiness is a revealing meditation on the fragility of contentment and the lengths we must go to in order to sustain it, and “[an] intensely moving collection” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).   “Excellent.” —The New Yorker