I really enjoyed this! A lovely read about family and the love and conflict that often goes hand in hand within in them. Would definitely recommend this, especially if you're looking for an interconnected short story collection.

COMPANY by Shannon Sanders is a must read for anyone who appreciates interconnected short story collections. Sanders delivers some surprises in the way some events and characters are revisited, which is spectacular. Even if you're not here for interconnected stories, read COMPANY for the immense talent Sanders has for writing short stories in general. I highly recommend this book!

An excellent debut! Through short stories, Sanders presents an intergenerational account of one black family (and a couple of associates) throughout decades of living in different cities across the eastern seaboard. This is the narrative seen as a whole, but each story zooms in on a different relationship or dynamic. Exploring different perspectives of the same lived history, these snippets give us an intimate understanding of the family in just over 200 pages.

I absolutely loved it, and could not possibly do it justice in any explanation. Conveying such a wide array of experiences and their different impacts in such few pages is truly an immense talent. A must-read!

Company is a collection of stories connected by the members of one middle-class Black family in America. It's about microaggressions and control issues, generational conflict, family relationships, and the culture of this particular family: how things are done, how hierarchies work, who capes for whom and why. Many of the stories end with humiliation or unhappiness; others simply capture moments of a life. Characters are well-drawn and filled out and Sanders has an excellent ear for dialogue and creating tension within it. It's a great book for book clubs and in-depth discussion.

This is the best debut I've read in 2023. These stories of arrivals, neighbors, obligation, and inheritance moved me deeply. The stories are interconnected and this does read like a novel and a beautiful one at that.

For readers of THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES, this is an intimate look into the family dynamics of an extended family through interconnected short stories. Very readable and compelling for those who like stories of domestic life and family dynamics. My enjoyment of each story varied--the collection felt uneven--but all in all, I was pulled to finish.

This is a collection of interconnected short stories set in and around Washington DC and centering on the members of a large, extended family. As with any large family, some are doing well and some are struggling and who that is may change over time. There are family stories, family expectations and the roles assigned in childhood that may chafe in adulthood. There are family stories where the reality is somewhat different and what is expected changes depending on the generation.

<i>They would only be in the house on Ashburn Street for six or nine months, a year at the absolute most, and so although Merritt knew she should make a point of meeting the neighbors, she put it off for two weeks after the move-in. She had begun to specialize in putting things off; these days she was leaden as an anchor, and Ashburn Street was the ocean floor.</i>

These stories stand on their own and the connections between the characters in each story reveal themselves as the book unspools. A character in one story is in the background of another, an event in one story is a familiar tale that bears just a glancing resemblance to the facts in another. There are two stories that recount the same event from different vantage points that was particularly effective. Throughout these stories, Sanders writes about people just trying to get through the challenges of their lives. It's a solid collection and I'm already looking forward to seeing what she writes next.

Interconnected short stories revolving around an extended Black family set in East Coast cities. A couple took me a while to understand what was happening but overall the stories were strong and interesting. I especially liked the ones about the woman who has just been named to be a provost at a university.

Connected short stories about multiple generations of a family, ranging from Atlantic City to New York City to Washington, D.C.

COMPANY blew me away. I cannot remember reading a contemporary collection like Shannon Sanders' debut. There's something very classical to her stories (I thought of Mavis Gallant, though I'm sure there's a more apt comparison), something that I feel is missing from many contemporary stories. Though they focus on the domestic, they somehow feel sprawling, always ending on a surprising note (sometimes, before the climax -- though the scope/world of the stories can feel small, the emotions run deep). I loved it. Thanks to the publisher for the -galley!

Company is such an apt title for this collection, because that is exactly what its stories give us: time in the company of its characters, varied and interesting as they all are. Something about these slice-of-life stories feels like being at a family function, and I mean that in the best way possible: catching up with people you haven't heard from in a while, getting the 411 on who did what to whom, what happened with whom, who was wrong or right about what. There are old and young characters, brothers and sisters, mothers and daughters, aunts and cousins. Families offer so much narrative material to explore, and Company is a real testament to that. That there is a family tree in the beginning of this collection tells you all that you need to know about it. It's a collection rooted in this family tree, its interest in the ways its various branches relate to each other, in major and minor ways, directly and peripherally.

We find the characters of Company, too, in very specific moments in time: at a party to celebrate a new position as dean of a college, in the kitchen preparing food for an early Christmas dinner, at a mother's house to celebrate her birthday. And it is precisely the specificity of these moments, these carefully calibrated scenes, that allows us to get to know these characters well: how they position themselves with respect to the characters around them (ingratiating? antagonistic? wary?), how they present (or intend to present) themselves, what their priorities are, what they notice and don't notice. This is all made possible by Sanders's confident and perceptive writing, its wryness lending the stories both their sharp insight and their wit and sense of humour. And in a collection that is so centered around its characters, Sanders is able to embody the idiom of each of her characters so effectively. Some stories take only one character's point of view, while others with more ensemble casts move fluidly between each character's voice--throughout all the stories, though, each character feels distinctly like *themselves*.

Altogether, a great collection that I really enjoyed. My favourite stories were: "La Belle Hotentote," "Amicus Curiae," and "Birds of Paradise."

These stories were great and I appreciate them more for having read them as a collection- each reaches out to the others and together they reach out to the reader, sometimes funny, sometimes creepy, sometimes sad, and sometimes maddening…you know, life…

I love these stories! I love stories about families and their complexities. This book delivered! There are several stories that I can't wait to revisit and read again!

This was a thought provoking collection of short stories. Quietly poignant and easy to pick up and come back to.

I really enjoyed the stories in Company. The stories were about an extended family, told through various perspectives. I liked how the stories were interconnected.

The characters in Company feel like family. So much of this feels like my own memories, like it wasn't something I read in a book but truly experienced. Sanders deftly puts previously indescribable emotions into words. This is easily one of the best story collections I'll read this year.

Since I'm not normally drawn to short stories, I specifically chose Company by Shannon Sanders because Sanders is an award-winning short story writer and attorney! They say attorneys can make great writers and this is certainly true in the case of Sanders.

The stories circle around a large, extended family including a matriarch, adult children, aunties and nieces and nephews. I really enjoyed how gently one notices the stories are connected. They are all separate, slices of life vignettes, and a family member or a handful are somewhere in the story.

A few of the stories rise to the top for me. I really enjoyed Bird of Paradise which centers around one of the adult children earning a promotion and her boss holding a little celebration party for her at his house. She invites her 2 nieces to attend with her - they are young adults - and buys dresses for them to wear.

Later in the book, you're dropped into that party again, in the story La Belle Hottentote, but this time from the nieces' perspective. What a surprise and delight! I highly recommend this book and will be looking for others from Shannon Sanders.

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