"Compelling. . . . What Miller offers . . . is a distinctive sensibility--a candid exploration of the frail and gritty truths about trying to love without harm or reprisal."--Boston Globe From Sue Miller, author of the bestselling THE GOOD MOTHER and FAMILY PICTURES, this collection of short stories, INVENTING THE ABBOTTS, explores the treacherously shifting ground of erotic and family relationships with deftness and depth. The title story is about a young man who takes up successively with three daughters of the most fashionable family in town. In other stories, whose characters range from a young girl in the first blush of sexual curiosity to a stricken dowager whose seizures release a brutal and sometimes obscene candor, Sue Miller presents a compelling gallery of contemporary men and women with hungry hearts and dismayed consciences. With keen sensitivity and penetrating insight, Inventing the Abbotts will strike a chord with readers everywhere.