Through Small Press Picks, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing–and highly recommending–four works of fiction by Wendy J. Fox: the novels If the Ice Had Held and The Pull of It, and the story collections What If We Were Somewhere Else and The Seven Stages of Anger.

When I learned that Wendy has a new novel, The Last Supper, coming in April, I was eager to read an advance copy. Having done so, I’m happy to recommend it as well.

Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy about The Last Supper and other topics connected to her work. Our Q&A follows.

Duet for One is a profound and multilayered meditation on love, loss, and grief, with a passion for music resonating throughout. With empathy and insight, the novel also explores the complicated relationships within one musically talented family.

Sherlock Holmes, the beloved fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is so preternaturally brilliant that it’s tempting to picture him having sprung into the world fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. One of the great pleasures of Before Baker Street: The Adventures of Teenage Sherlock Holmes is that it vividly imagines something the Doyle stories don’t: Sherlock’s origins. Through seven captivating tales, we see him coming into his own as a sleuth, developing the skills that made him famous in both fiction and reality.

In these perceptive, richly observed stories, characters arrive at major turning points in their lives through conflicts in relationships or other circumstances, often leading them to a greater understanding of themselves and those close to them. Taken together, the stories offer a layered examination of how people can find ways to live with emotionally complex and difficult situations and, perhaps, imagine new possibilities for themselves.

As a former journalist, and as a citizen who is deeply concerned about the multiple threats facing the news media today, I was heartened and moved by Sunshine Girl, which can be seen as an extended tribute to the reporters and editors who devote long hours to shedding light on issues that would otherwise be overlooked, or actively hidden from view. With depth and feeling, the novel also explores the struggles of a family with close ties to the news business.

I’ve long been a fan of escapist entertainment, never more so than in these deeply troubling times. So I was delighted to learn about–and read–Last Night at the Disco, a rollicking and hilarious thrill trip helmed by anti-hero extraordinaire Lynda Boyle. Lynda’s core desire is to leave her New Jersey hometown behind for good and to escape once and for all to New York City. She imagines that, once there, she’ll assume a central place in the East Village poetry scene and party for as many nights as she’d like at her beloved celebrity-magnet disco, Studio 54. These dreams are exceeded only by the size of Lynda’s ego, which is in constant need of feeding.

Although this novel, told entirely from Lynda’s point of view, delivers much-needed escapism, its pleasures are far from simple thanks to its insider perspective on her constant, and often brilliant, scheming. To say that she’s a beauty with brains is a gross understatement. It would be more accurate to say that she’s a beauty with war-room-level strategizing powers, and she deploys these powers ruthlessly.

The stories in this unflinchingly frank and emotionally resonant collection explore multiple effects of the traumas that women face, whether from abusive or emotionally absent partners, from the physical or psychological strains of motherhood, from sexual harassment, or from threatened or enacted violence. In doing so, the stories shed an unsparing light on individual women’s fears, struggles, and anxieties and on the root causes of their traumas. The result is a haunting and deeply relevant collection, one that often indicts the larger culture.