Dana Spiotta Books in Order

Mina's work at fashionable Los Angeles restaurants intersects with affairs, family troubles, and her friend Lorene's fixation on perfection. Alongside house cleaner Lisa's anxieties, their lives expose the insecurities beneath a culture of consumption and carefully managed appearances.

After a Vietnam-era radical action ends disastrously, Mary abandons her identity and disappears. Decades later, her teenage son's curiosity threatens her hidden past, connecting an earlier generation's political rebellion with the uneasy life she has rebuilt.

Denise remains the devoted audience for her brother Nik's privately created music and elaborate imagined career. As their mother's memory deteriorates, Denise's daughter begins a documentary about him, bringing new pressure to their intensely connected family.

Lifelong friends Meadow and Carrie become filmmakers with sharply different ideas about art and morality. Their paths intersect with Jelly, who forms intimate telephone relationships with powerful men, prompting questions about honesty, connection, and the consequences of storytelling.

At fifty-two, Samantha confronts her mother's illness, her daughter's distance, and growing unease with her life. Impulsively buying a neglected Syracuse house draws her away from her family as she searches for purpose in an unsettled America.