"Once her dying got underway, Anna could not really complain about the way the process moved along." So begins this deftly amusing, wryly perceptive look at the dying of a feisty, funny ninety-year old woman. During the four days between her death and her burial --and with the unique perception she is allowed prior to her funeral--Anna discovers certain secrets her daughters have hidden from her. She is deeply shocked by the revelation of an act that must have transpired between herself as...

These powerful essays share critical moments of a writer's life: scenes from sixty years of passionate married love; suicides faced and suicide contemplated; trauma at the DMV; a night lost searching for a harpsichord in the mountains of Florence, Italy; the tale of a beloved cousin whose plane is shot down by Japanese Zeros; and a precious friendship between two women writers derailed by the poisons of religion and politics. In the titular essay (included in Best American Essays 2023

Merrill Joan Gerber holds the record of having sold more short stories to Redbook Magazine than any other writer. This selection of twenty-five linked tales, published in Redbook from 1964 to 1991, chronicles the passionate (domestic) adventures of Janet, Danny and their three daughters.

This is the poignant story of a loving, gentle man, "antique" by virtue, "an antique man" by profession. It is the story of his lingering death, of his transcendent courage, of the agony and solitude of those who must watch-his wife and two daughters. It is everyone's story in that it tells in specific and particular terms the general human experience of love and loss, suffering and death. It is agony redeemed by art.An Antique Man is also an extraordinary portrait of a ti...

Gerber heads to Florence with her husband, a history professor taking a group of students. She goes in nervous, not knowing any Italian, but gradually starts to learn her way around Florence and other cities in Italy.

Old Mother, Little Cat is a highly readable memoir of Gerber’s mother’s decline in health and how their relationship grew during this time, blended in with Gerber’s finding a kitten and her developing relationship with Max (the name she gives the kitten).

Winner of the Ribalow Prize from Hadassah Magazine, Merrill Joan Gerber superbly evokes an anguished child's faltering steps toward consciousness... Gerber has written often-and grippingly-of tormented families… but never as daringly as here."In this brutally candid, semiautobiographical novel, Gerber again (as in King of the World) corrosively delineates the heinous abuses inflicted in the name of love, and a victim's ambivalence toward her abuser… Her wry purity of style packs ps...

Now Molly Knows is a novel about a girl's sexual discovery, from early teens and high school through college and on up into marriage. It's set in the American fifties.

Comprehensive yet succinct and readable, Literacy in Grades 4-8, Third Edition offers a wealth of practical ideas to help preservice and practicing teachers create a balanced and comprehensive literacy program while exploring the core topics and issues of literacy in grades 4 through 8. It addresses teaching to standards; differentiating instruction for readers and writers; motivating students; using assessment to inform instruction; integrating technology into the classroom; work...

A moving, powerful story of women exchanging secrets and sexual advice in an encounter group.

Anna in Chains is a collection of stories about the reality of being an elderly woman in the modern world and all the struggles that go with it.Anna Goldman, nearly eighty years old, widowed and living on her own in the Fairfax Area of Los Angeles, struggles to remain independent as she moves through the modern world. Jewish, but disenchanted with religion in any guise, Anna eats bacon to dare God's wrath. Living in a mixed ethnic neighborhood, Anna pronounces her prejudices agains...

Glimmering Girls tells the story of three extraordinary American women during a time of sexual and cultural repression. Francie and her friends Liz and Amanda are college students, coming of age intellectually, emotionally, and physically in a setting where men were forbidden entry to women’s dorm rooms, and women were locked into those rooms after curfew. College life for women was governed by one simple, cardinal rule: Marry Before Graduation or Be Lost Forever. Any thirst for adventure ...