Inventing the Abbots and other stories - Sue Miller

In the small town of Haley, Illinois, the wealthy Abbott family, with its three pretty daughters and endless society parties, seems a world away from the hand-to-mouth existence of Doug and his older brother, John. Embittered by his mother's imperceptible neglect, itself the result of young widowhood, John's obsession with the daughters of the Abbott family grows out of a deep yearning for something his own family could never provide. But to Alice, Eleanor and Pamela Abbott, he will never be anything other than a 'boy from the other side of the tracks'.

The eleven short stories in this impressive collection illustrate Sue Miller's ability to portray a wide range of human emotions, to capture a whole relationship in a brief exchange, and to cut through her characters' layers of self-deception.