About

These novellas envision a future for the principal characters in three of Anton Chekhov’s plays (The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, and The Three Sisters), all set in Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Author

Catherine Browder is the author of three previous books of short fiction: The Clay That Breathes, Secret Lives, and The Heart. A playwright and actress who grew up in the Midwest, she has lived in England, Japan, and Taiwan. She has taught ESL here and abroad and creative writing at University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has held fiction fellowships from the NEA and the Missouri Arts Council, and her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband.

Reviews

“I was won over by this sensitive, soberly restrained handling of Chekhov’s material.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Call it homage. Call if fan fiction. Whatever you call it, it’s worth a read.”
—Liz Cook, The Kansas City Star

“Exhibiting a major literary talent of her own, Catherine Browder does Chekhov’s plays and the characters that inhabit them a full measure of justice with new and imaginative storytelling that rivals Chekhov himself. Erudite, ingenious, original, and vivid, Now We Can All Go Home is very highly recommended reading and would prove to be an exceptional addition to community and academic library Literary Fiction collections.”
—Wisconsin Book Watch

Praise

“Chekhov’s characters use words to avoid, conceal, cajole, deny, melodramatize, philosophize, prevaricate, and lie. Who wouldn’t want to know what’s going on in the heads behind those busy mouths? In a tour de force of the imagination, Catherine Browder deeply inhabits the point of view of central characters from three Chekhov plays—and creates the continuation of their lives in three convincing, charming and moving novellas.”
—Janet Burroway, author of Losing Tim and Opening Nights

“Catherine Browder is in love with Chekhov’s characters. Why, she must be. She breathes with them. She understands them completely. She gives them further life—follows them off the stage to other moments in their lives in this wonderful collection of novellas. Yelena of Uncle Vanya meets a man more appealing to her than Astrov ever was. Ah, we think, yes, she would. Irina of Three Sisters has to deal with life after her fiancée is killed in a duel and the rest of the extended family pursues other matters. They would. The Sea Gull novella visits life on the estate, post Kostya. Yes, life has gone on. Browder, in impeccable prose, captures all this with tender feeling and with dead-on accuracy.”
—Kathleen George, author of The Johnstown Girls

Publisher

Distributed for BkMk Press.