A New Day
Linked by their personal and professional relationships, the characters in these thirteen stories—all set between 1982 and 2012—struggle to achieve happiness and success.. A coke-fueled night with a photographer costs a young woman her job in the display department of Bloomingdale’s, but holds a hidden promise. A sculptor tries to resurrect his relationship with an old flame on the same day her best friend is undergoing a bone marrow transplant. An aspiring actress drifts from house-sit to house-sit until an armed robbery at the restaurant where she works makes her question a lifelong pattern of impermanence.
Moody, elegiac, and full of longing, with ricocheting themes of desire and loss, A New Day’s stories are steeped in the highs and lows inherent in the pursuit of love and creative expression.
Finalist - 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award
Advance Praise
“Endlessly fascinating characters propel these wonderfully ardent stories.”
–Kirkus Reviews
“Sue Mell brilliantly crosses three decades of heartbreak, desire, and discovery in these sharp and nimble stories. The trio of women at the heart of A New Day are whip-smart, creative, vulnerable, determined. I would follow them anywhere.”
–Laura van den Berg, author of State of Paradise
“I loved the loops and tangles in this gorgeous net of stories. It’s such a beautifully mapped world, where every friendship has its betrayals and rescues, and every city is one in which “you were bound, eventually, to bump into everyone you’d ever slept with.” A wonderful and clear-sighted book.“
–Joan Silber, author of The Secrets of Happiness and Improvement
“In these stories Sue Mell crafts vivid, deeply human characters and sends them pinballing off of each other, rocketing or drifting into next chapters, next relationships, new cities and old haunts. This collection beautifully captures the delicious chaos of real life, lived over decades of mingled success and disappointment, of missed connections and second chances.”
–Caitlin Horrocks, author of Life Among the Terranauts
“Sex, money, ambition, friendship; the myriad challenges of ordinary survival in A New Day are handled with wry and artful insight. Beautifully complex characters are pieces of a puzzle in this fine collection, while each story is both distinct and part of the whole.”
–Louise Marburg, author of You Have Reached Your Destination
“A wise and tender portrait of chance encounters and missed connections, Sue Mell’s A New Day is a love letter to the people we meet along the way and those we leave behind. I loved it.”
–Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year
“Intimate and immediate, Sue Mell’s A New Day expertly weaves together stories about unspoken desires, missed connections, and people searching for intimacy amidst their fear of truly being seen. An enthralling and visceral collection about both our inescapable interconnectedness and loneliness, the role chance plays in the decisions we make, and how even the most seemingly small moments irrevocably impact our lives.”
–Ronit Plank, author of Home Is a Made-Up Place
“A New Day is a compelling collection of short stories spanning three decades. Clear prose, vivid scenes, and snappy dialogue bring Mell’s well-developed characters to life. These linked stories explore relationships—evocative snapshots revealing desire, love, loss and everything in between.”
–Corie Adjmi, author of Life and Other Shortcomings