Arlene Heyman

For fans of Alice Munro and Edith Pearlman, a stunning debut collection of short stories about aging, relationships, and intimacy.

Scary Old Sex

Il buon vecchio sesso fa paura

“Thrilling . . . Like all the best literature, Artifact leaves you feeling as if you've been through a major life experience and you're stronger for it.” - Sandra Newman, author of The Heavens A sweeping debut novel about love, sex, motherhood, and ambition that follows a gifted and subversive scientist's struggle to reach beyond cultural constraints for the life she wants. From practicing psychiatrist and critically acclaimed author of Scary Old Sex (“the kind of bliss that lifts right off the page” -Dwight Garner, NYT), Artifact is the dazzling, half-century-spanning story of biologist Lottie Kristin. Born in Michigan in the early 1940s to a taciturn mother and embittered father, Lottie is independent from the start, fascinated with the mysteries of nature and the human body. By age sixteen, she and her sweetheart, cheerful high school sports hero Charlie Hart, have been through a devastatingly traumatic pregnancy. When an injury ends Charlie's football career four years later, the two move to Texas hoping for a fresh start. There, torn between the vitality of the antiwar movement and her family's traditional values, Lottie discovers the joys of motherhood, and reconnects with her interest in biology and experimentation, taking a job as a lab technician. While Charlie's depression pervades their home, Lottie's instinct is toward life; though every step is a struggle, she opts for single motherhood, graduate school, a career, and eventually, a marriage that makes space for all that she is. Bravely and wisely written, Artifact is an intimate and propulsive portrait of a whole woman, a celebration of her refusal to be defined by others' imaginations, and a meditation on the glorious chaos of biological life.

Artifact

From the author of Scary Old Sex, the story of a gifted young biologist's fight for the life, and the love, that she wants--a novel of sex, drive, and motherhood that crackles with female reality and desire. "An homage to the body's capacity to impart amazement." - Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal "An artifact of so many women's lives." - Lynn Steger Strong, New York Times Book Review From practicing psychiatrist and critically acclaimed author of Scary Old Sex (“the kind of bliss that lifts right off the page” -Dwight Garner, NYT), Artifact is the dazzling, half-century-spanning story of biologist Lottie Kristin. Born in Michigan in the early 1940s to a taciturn mother and embittered father, Lottie is independent from the start, fascinated with the mysteries of nature and the human body. By age sixteen, she and her sweetheart, cheerful high school sports hero Charlie Hart, have been through a devastatingly traumatic pregnancy. When an injury ends Charlie's football career four years later, the two move to Texas hoping for a fresh start. There, torn between the vitality of the antiwar movement and her family's traditional values, Lottie discovers the joys of motherhood, and reconnects with her interest in biology and experimentation, taking a job as a lab technician. While Charlie's depression pervades their home, Lottie's instinct is toward life; though every step is a struggle, she opts for single motherhood, graduate school, a career, and eventually, a marriage that makes space for all that she is. Bravely and wisely written, Artifact is an intimate and propulsive portrait of a whole woman, a celebration of her refusal to be defined by others' imaginations, and a meditation on the glorious chaos of biological life.

'Sensual and sometimes shocking ... Heyman writes with such intimacy and precision that she frequently makes you feel like a trespasser' Daily Mail Lottie Kristin is independent from the start. Born in the middle of the century to a middle-class family in the very middle of middle America, her smarts and her sensuality set her apart from the rest of the pack early. A girl who'd rather carry out dissections in the snowy back yard than join her family for Christmas dinner is a strange and exotic artifact in the town of Sleeping Bay. But by her early twenties, Lottie finds herself trapped in a marriage to a high school sweetheart gone stale, with a daughter she adores but whose existence will debar her mother from the place she most longs for: the lab. How can a young woman make her way in a world determined to contain her brilliance, her will, and her longing to live? Bravely and wisely written, Artifact is an intimate and propulsive portrait of a whole woman, a celebration of her refusal to be defined by others' imaginations, and a meditation on the glorious chaos of biological life.

Arlene Heyman

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