Books by Ellen Hawley

“Quietly Magical. A book that draws you in and then refuses to let you go.” —Stephen May

Summer Dawidowitz has spent the past year caring for her grandmother, Josie—a lifelong Communist, a dedicated teacher, and the founder of an organization that tutors schoolchildren. When Josie dies, everything that seemed solid in Summer’s life comes into question. What sort of relationship will she have with the mother who abandoned her? Will she meet with the brother Josie exiled from the family? Does she really want to go back to the non-monogamous household she was part of before she moved in to take care of Josie?

Above all, does she still believe a small, committed group of citizens can change the world, and if so, how?

Published by Swift Press

“Other People Manage is a tender and beautiful addition to the literary canon, and a mirror for LGBT readers.” —Joelle Taylor

It’s Minneapolis in the 1970s, and two women meet in the Women’s Coffeehouse. Marge is a bus driver, and Peg is training to be a psychotherapist.

Over the next twenty years, they stay together, through the challenges any couple faces and some that no one expects. Then one day things change, and Marge has to work out what she’s left with—and if she still belongs to the family she’s adopted as her own.

Other People Manage is a novel about hard-earned but everyday love. It’s about family and it’s about loss. It’s the kind of novel that only someone who has lived enough of life could write—frequently funny, at times almost unbearably moving, but above all extraordinarily wise.

Published by Swift Press

“Food and love and loss and resilience—and a terrific narrative playfulness—are Hawley’s recipe for a slyly entertaining and heartening novel.” —Daniel Menaker

Abigail is sure the only thing standing between her and happiness is the weight she gained along with her beloved new baby. Until, that is, she loses 170 pounds of husband. Floundering, she turns to an imaginary guru and best friend, the author of her new weight-loss book. “Make an inventory of your skills,” her guru instructs. Cooking tops the list, but what she loves is real food, not the fatless, joyless dishes her guru recommends.

So far, following other people’s rules has left her broke, lonely, and living n her parents’ house. What would her life look like if she broke them?

A novel for every woman who ever walked away from a relationship. Or a diet.

Published by Kensington

“Hawley’s characters are fully realized people, with their own set of ambitions, insecurities and competing desires, and her great achievement is to have constructed out of their lives a deft and hilarious sendup of the media and political culture.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Annette Majoris is a late-night Minneapolis talk show host with prime-time ambitions, but her big personality and gorgeous voice have only gotten her so far and she desperately needs a hook. One slow night, with a caller ranting about the usual things, she suggests the Vietnam War may have been a hoax—a mind-control experiment of grand proportions—and finds herself caught in a storm of publicity and paranoia. With the help of a a major right-wing fundraiser, a fringe-group activist, a governor, and countless disillusioned veterans, her theories begin to capture the public’s imagination. Open Line is a high-energy satire and an affecting story about the personal costs of getting mixed up in celebrity culture, big-money politics, and the 24/7 news cycle.

Published by Coffee House Press

“A small celebration of an everyday life, and a fine piece of writing.” —Jodie Ahern

Cab driver Cath Rahven has given up on men but  discovers that sleeping with women isn’t enough to instantly recalibrate her life. In her journey away from the safe and the unsatisfying, she discovers herself as a more loving person than she had thought possible.

Published by Milkweed Editions

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