Time: The Present: Selected Stories

Time: The Present collects the best short stories of one of the finest American writers of the 1930s, Tess Slesinger. An Academy Award-winning screenwriter, Tess Slesinger was one of the most innovative and original short story writers of her generation. She dealt with issues of sexuality, economics, race, and the complex relationships between men and women in and out of marriage that remain highly relevant today. Slesinger’s stories can be satirical, comic, bittersweet, or tragic—but most of all, always immediate. As Vivian Gornick puts it in her eloquent introduction, Slesinger’s ‘feeling for life’s unavoidable sorrow remains haunting.’ Taking great stylistic risks, Slesinger freed her stories of the constraints of period and place and created works that are timeless in their impact and approach. Time: The Present restores Slesinger’s rightful place as one of the greats of the 20th century short story form. It includes numerous stories from The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and other magazines collected here for the first time. Time: The Present continues Recovered Books’ mission to bring long forgotten books of exceptional merit and resounding relevance to today’s readers.