bibliography
Novels
Homework
- February 1990
- Originally published by Viking. Paperback edition published by Picador.
Celia Gilchrist believes that she has finally found the right man in Stephen, but when she moves in with him and his young daughter, Jenny, things begin to go subtly, menacingly wrong. Money disappears, a sweater is ruined, small, commonplace lies escalate into awkward confrontations. more »
Criminals
- January 1996
- Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf. Paperback edition published by Picador.
A cautious, distracted London banker hurrying to visit his troubled sister, Mollie, in Scotland finds a baby abandoned in a bus station restroom and takes the child with him. Mollie’s emotional life is in tatters—or is it?—and she clings to the infant with desperate cunning. more »
The Missing World
- January 2000
- Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf. Paperback edition published by Picador.
When Hazel loses three years of her past after a traffic accident wipes out her memory, she doesn’t remember her quarrel with Jonathan—or that she left him and moved out of their house. All she knows is that he has dropped everything to care for her and professes to adore her. more »
Eva Moves the Furniture
- September 2001
- Originally published by Henry Hold & Co. Paperback edition published by Picador.
On the night of Eva McEwen’s birth in a small Scottish town her mother dies, leaving her to grow up lonely but never quite alone. For two mysterious presences haunt her: a woman and a girl whom no one else can see. more »
Banishing Verona
- November 2004
- Originally published by Henry Holt & Co. Paperback edition published by Picador.
Zeke is twenty-nine and working as a carpenter and painter in London. Verona is thirty-seven, headstrong, and seven months pregnant. When the two meet in a house that Zeke is renovating, they fall in love, only to be separated less than twenty-four hours later when Verona mysteriously disappears. more »
Short Fiction
Learning By Heart
- October 1986
- Originally published by Penguin Group, Ltd.
Short story collection. Currently out of print.
Non-fiction/Essays
- Columns for The Boston Globe
- The tax man cometh, time and time again," April 13, 2009
- "Following Boston's other historic trail," April 20, 2009
- "Restoring our secret gardens," April 27, 2009
- "Judging the Susan Boyles of the world," May 4, 2009
- "What makes good art?", May 11, 2009
- "The nation of the armed," May 18, 2009
- Naming the World
- Writing exercises
- Bret Johnston, Ed., 2008
- The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books
- Essay
- Peder Zane, Ed., 2007
- The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them
- Essay
- Roxanne Coady and Joy Johannessen, Eds., 2006
- Now Write!
- Essay/Writing Exercise
- Sherry Ellis, Ed., 2006
- "Mrs. Turpin Reads the Stars"
- Cincinnati Review
- Spring 2007
- "The Longest Hour"
- Death by Pad Thai
- Douglas Bauer, Ed., 2006
- "The Most Scottish Book I Ever Read"
- Remarkable Reads
- Peder Zane, Ed., 2004
- "The Third Servant"
- Five Points Magazine, 1998
- Also included in The Business of Memory, Charles Baxter, Ed., 1999
- "The Hidden Machinery"
- The Eleventh Draft
- Frank Conroy, Ed., 1999
- "A Love Match" A Few Thousand Words About Love
- Mickey Pearlman, Ed., 1998
- "Glenalmond"
- Five Points Magazine, 1997
- Reprinted in Utne Reader
- "Diogenes at the Theatre, or the Teacher's Lament"
- AWP Chronicle
- February, 1996
- "Writing Eva"
- I've Always Wanted to Tell You: Letters to Our Mothers
- Connie Warloe, Ed., 1997
- "The Double Life of Robert Louis Stevenson"
- The Atlantic Monthly, 1994
- "The Valley of Lost Things"
- Between Friends
- Mickey Pearlman, Ed., 1994
- "How to Tell a True Story"
- AWP Chronicle, 1993
- Reprinted in The Best Writing on Writing, Story Press, 1994;
- Bringing the Devil to His Knees, 1999
Additional contributions
- The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot (Introduction). Random House, 2001.
- Kidnapped: or, The Lad with the Silver Button, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Introduction). Modern Library, 2001.
- The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg (Introduction). NYRB Classics, 2002.
- Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Ed. (Introduction). University of Michigan Press, 2004.
- Sudden Rain: A novel, by Maritta Wolff (Introduction). Scribner, 2006.