"Total" by Rebecca Miller (Canongate, 2022)

• Mrs Covet - Daphne, with 2 young kids, is pregnant. She thinks about the pros/cons of love. There's a ladybug invasion. Her mother-in-law gets Nat (mother of 3 grown kids) in to help. The new baby arrives very prematurely but recovers. Nat kidnaps her and is found far away. The baby is safe.
• I want you to know - A young couple, Joad and Andrew, are settling down, buying an old farmhouse/barn to renovate off Trevor, who also part-owns the restaurant they both part-work in. They write a popular blog. They visit Trevor at his home. His 70 year old mother Colleen masterbates their dog to calm it down. While tidying the house, Joad find a desk in their loft. There's writing. We're giving pages of type-written rambling by a woman who'd been a soldier, maybe has delayed PTSD and has children and is married to JP. Next day Joad visits Colleen, who's drunk. Joad looks round the house - photos of Colleen with Bill Clinton, etc. She asked about the farmhouse's previous inhabitants. Colleen said Fiona hounded her, wanting to be published.
• Vapors - Justine's repeatedly been unfaithful, sleeping with old boyfriends. "Anyway, when Carlos left the hotel, she called Elliot, with whom if you remember she was still living". She's now a single mother.
• Total - The Total Phone (now banned) was like a mind-melder. But pregnant women who used one risked giving birth to a Total - a silent, deformed child with a life-expectancy of 8. Roxanne (1st person PoV) is 16. Her mother was a developer of the Total Phone. Roxanne's sister, Eva, is 8 and is in a care home where her room is empty like that of an "astronaut nun". With the help of a rich, rebellious school friend, Holly, Roxanne abducts Eva so she can be happy, though it's impossible to tell what Eva's feeling. They join the bus of a touring band, financed by Holly. During a gig, while Rox has disappointing sex with a band member she's longed for, Eva dies. Years later, Rox has a baby - "I bowed to her mystery. What was awaiting me inside that child was unknown to me then, but I was no longer my own. I belonged to her."
  An excellent story, so much better than the previous ones
• She came to me - Ciaran Fox (married with kids) goes into Dublin for a meeting. He's desperate to get ideas for his next novel. The story has more similes than usual. He goes to a bookshop to look at his books. He goes to a pub and sees a 30-ish woman. She's a US tourist, a pet-shop worker. She has a disorder - she's addicted to romance. He accepts her invitation to sleep with her. Back home he realises he's forgotten the meeting but he's happy because he's found a subject for his novel.
• Receipts - Rather than celebrate their anniversary, the narrator (30, female) flies to a sales conference because they need the money - Chad and her are engaged. He accuses her of being ambitious and heartless. Tom, a fellow delegate, forces himself into her hotel room. To get rid of him he sucks him off. Months later, when she and Chad are out having a meal, Tom's there. She introduces Tom to Chad. 10 years later Tom has married someone else and has children. She's childless with her own company - "Still we rebel, still we are slovenly, still we do not keep our receipts" - Erica Jong?
• The Chekhovians - Mac is visiting his girlfriend's very rich family for the first time. They've been in Berlin and Tangiers for 3 months. They're marrying in 3 days. A BBQ is put on. The Van Camps, neighbours, are invited. The mother, Olivia, used to be an actress specialising in Chekhov roles. Her husband and son are dead. She lives with her daughter Lara, 14, and hapless brother. They're nearly broke. They're nicknamed "the chekhovians" by the hosts. At the BBQ the host suggests to Olivia that he could buy their house for $14 million as a gift to his daughter. Lara has suddenly blossomed. She's acutely aware than men look at her. Mac talks to her on the beach, pleased to meet a real person for a change. He kisses her then retreats. Lara goes home, says "Goodbye old house".

There's no hanging around in these stories, no musing on the meaning of life. The plots I've described may make them sound rather ordinary. Except for the title story I think they are.

Other reviews

• Hephzibah Anderson (If some of these characters feel like established literary types, that seems integral to the playfulness and profundity of the narratives in which Miller embeds them, lulling us along in order to accentuate the swerve that lies in wait)
• New York Times (The stories in Rebecca Miller’s new collection, “Total,” are mostly about a certain type of woman, the type who wields her sexuality and vulnerability as twinned powers related to the desire to be cared for and to care for others ... The stories hew closely to the psyches of their characters, a confessional first person or close third that sometimes roves, and it’s in this proximity that Miller lets us see the nuances of these lives. ... You’ve read stories of this ilk before, but Miller knows and is playing with the ways that familiarity is also comfort, also proof of all the ways stories and lives infinitely repeat. You’ve never quite seen them inhabited by these versions of these characters, nor at the tenor of these sentences, with these deftly deployed layers of surprise.)
• Sarah Gilmartin (Characters yearning for a better way to live feature in many of the seven stories in Rebecca Miller’s enthralling new collection, Total. Other motifs include the restorative power of motherhood, the loss of a sibling, infidelity as a form of escape, the human need for connection. ... Her ability to step back from her characters and allow them space to make their mistakes without judgment bears the hallmark of a true writer. )
• Kirkus reviews (The protagonists are mostly women, privileged, if not necessarily wealthy, members of the liberal elite. Their passion often centers around children.)