"Reading Thoreau's Laundry is like taking many journeys with 
the best possible traveling companion, one who makes the world 
more vivid, more resonant, more interesting at the deepest level."
—Margot Livesey

The twelve stories in Ann Harleman's second fiction collection 
span a century (from 1911 to the present) and range over two 
continents. Her characters confront love and loss—heartbreak, 
adultery, divorce, chronic degenerative illness, disability, and 
death—within a context of political and social upheaval. Their 
personal battles are intensified by the trials of their times: the 
onset of World War I, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, the 
Iron Curtain, the Cold War, the urban warfare in America's inner 
cities, 9/11. Despite their often dire circumstances, Harleman's 
characters manage to find moments of light and grace.

"Thoreau's Laundry is brainy, funny, soulful and original. Ann 
Harleman is that rare writer whose playfulness with words is as 
skillful as her ardent portrayal of human experience."—Meg 
Wolitzer

"A tapestry of beautifully written stories, gripping, deeply affecting 
and completely entertaining. Each story shimmers with the 
richness of Harleman's insightful prose."—Mary McGarry Morris

_________________________________________________________

ANN HARLEMAN is the author of Happiness, a story collection 
that won the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and the novel Bitter Lake 
(SMU, 1996). She's been the recipient of Guggenheim and 
Rockefeller fellowships, three Rhode Island State Arts Council 
fellowships, the Berlin Prize in Literature, the PEN Syndicate Fiction 
Award, an O.Henry Award, and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award. In an 
earlier life, she was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in linguistics 
from Princeton, and she lived and worked behind the Iron Curtain. 
Now she is on the faculties of Brown University and the Rhode Island 
School of Design, where she teaches fiction writing to visual artists.

Visit the author's Web site at www.annharleman.com.



What people are saying about this book

"Thoreau's Laundry is a vivid fugue of voices—of whole families—
whose stories wind around each other, inextricably, profoundly 
connected. Ann Harleman knows a great deal about exile, whether 
from body or birthplace, and her reports from the far side of comfort 
are riveting."—Rosellen Brown

"Ann Harleman is as good a short story writer as we've got. 
Harleman's stories are like birds in flight—swift, graceful and precise."
—John Casey

"A hugely accomplished collection of stories—confidently wide-
ranging in theme and setting, eloquent, moving, and shrewdly 
profound."—William Boyd