Sara Hosey

Sara Hosey is the author of three novels: Iphigenia Murphy (2020), Imagining Elsewhere (2022), and Summer People (2023), as well as a short story collection, Dirty Suburbia (2024).

 

Sara has lived in several neighborhoods in Queens, New York: Flushing, Jackson Heights, Long Island City, and Richmond Hill, as well as out on the North Shore of Long Island. She's also spent time in upstate New York (Sullivan County), as well as Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin. She once stayed for months at a cottage on an island in the middle of a lake, reachable only by boat, with a single, intrepid cat for company. These days, her house has too many cats, and too many dogs, but just the right amount of people.

"Gritty and darkly funny and ultimately humane." -Jess Walter, author of We Live in Water

 

"Every story in Hosey's distinguished, engrossing collection is memorable, suffused with meaning and emotion, with characters exhibiting the grace and wisdom of age or the testiness of youth. This is splendidly entertaining reading...Measured, witty, captivating tales starring a series of resilient, likable female characters."-Kirkus Reviews

 

"[A}story collection that offers both closely observed situations and a wide-ranging emotional exploration...each story features a slow reveal of perfectly timed, well-chosen details that continually revise the reader's understanding of the characters and their lives." -Laura Dennis in Mom Egg Review.

 

"Sara Hosey's wit and wisdom bring to mind Ali Smith and Lucia Berlin. Her stories resonate with love and sympathy for the women and girls of the poor, working, and middle-class navigating life under an oppressive, simpering patriarchy. Her characters are smart, funny, bold and wonderfully flawed. Preteens play at being mothers to a wayward child. A teenager meets up with a creep she met online. A young woman gets embroiled in a robbery scheme. A seasoned real-estate agent blows up at her clients. A dog walker sabotages her best friend's marriage. Sara takes us all over the dirty underside of the suburbs of Wisconsin and New York, but really--spiritually - of every small town and outskirt in America. This is a book I will keep coming back to."-- Joel Mowdy, author of Floyd Harbor

 

"Absolutely stunning! Sara Hosey's Dirty Suburbia contains some of the most poignant, insightful, and entertaining stories I have read in ages. I couldn't put this book down. Perceptive, empathetic, and always on point, Hosey's characters will stay with you. From the two pre-teen kidnappers trying to figure out how to return their "prey," to a young woman's encounter with a Thoreau-reenactor, to a stunning story about navigating misogyny at Christmas dinner, and a heartbreaking tale of living with the aftermath of sexual assault, I was awestruck by the range of tales and will be thinking about the world of Dirty Suburbia for a long time. These stories are absolute gems. Not to be missed." --Kelly Fordon, Author of 

I Have the Answer