One Girl: A Novel in Stories

by Sheila Kohler

Stories about women by a South African writer. The story, Cracks, the basis for a novel by the same name, is on a boarding school for girls, while in Luck a beautiful girl serves as bait for her mother to get a man.

Luck
Peaches and plums
Cracks
The original
Ambush
The bride's secret
Structure
Light
Trust
Africans
Water baby
On the money
Correspondence I
Correspondence II
About the author

157 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Sheila Kohler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the younger of two girls. Upon matriculation at 17 from Saint Andrews, with a distinction in history (1958), she left the country for Europe. She lived for 15 years in Paris, where she married, did her undergraduate degree in literature at the Sorbonne, and a graduate degree in psychology at the Institut Catholique. After raising her three girls, she moved to the USA in 1981, and did an MFA in writing at Columbia.

In the summer of 1987, her first published story, “The Mountain,” came out in “The Quarterly” and received an O’Henry prize and was published in the O’Henry Prize Stories of 1988. It also became the first chapter in her first novel, "The Perfect Place," which was published by Knopf the next year.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The final two chapters, entitled "Correspondence I" and "Correspondence II," respectively, are two of the most harrowing pieces of fiction I have ever read. So good.

[Mads P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of short stories that interweave similar themes. I've seen Sheila Kohler speak for a day at a workshop at COCA. She teaches writing at Columbia and is just delightful and brilliant.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wicked book about bad mommies who recline in bed all afternoon and devise dangerous assignations for their daughters.