"Compelling. . . . What Miller offers. . . is a distinctive sensibility--a candid exploration of the frail and gritty truths about trying to love without harm or reprisal."--Boston Globe

In this riveting collection of short stories, bestselling author Sue Miller writes compellingly about a chapter in the moral history of our time.

The fascinating stories featured in Inventing the Abbotts explore the treacherously shifting ground of erotic and family relationships.

In the title story, a young man takes up successively with three daughters of the most fashionable family in town. Others concern a young girl in the first blush of sexual curiosity, and a stricken dowager whose seizures release a brutal and sometimes obscene candor. In one story after another, Sue Miller presents a remarkable gallery of characters, offering insight into contemporary men and women with their hungry hearts and dismayed consciences.

With keen sensitivity and penetrating insight, Inventing the Abbotts will strike a chord with readers everywhere.