Publisher, Blackstone Audiobooks (August 2010)

NOTE: RETAIL EDITIONS are packaged in attractive, compact cardboard, jewel-case or DVD shrink-wrapped cases, with full-color art.

ALERT! YOUR CD PLAYER MUST BE MP3 COMPATIBLE! MP3 audiobooks on compact disc can be played on newer CD players that support MP3 technology and accept a 4.75" diameter disc, and on any personal computer that has Microsoft's Media Player or similar software.

Listen to a FREE audio clip.

One of the New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2009

On Oprah’s Summer Reading List for 2010

“Though it might seem strange to praise a writer for the things she doesn’t do, what really sets Meloy apart is her restraint. She is impressively concise, disciplined in length and scope. And she’s balanced in her approach to character, neither blinded by love for her creations, nor abusive toward them…She’s such a talented and unpredictable writer that I’m officially joining her fan club; whatever she writes next, I’ll gladly read it.”—New York Times Book Review

“In the best short stories—by Poe, Raymond Carver, Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor or Alice Munro—there is always malaise, if not outright heartache, on the horizon. In less able hands this convention turns lugubrious and contrived. But Meloy’s lean, targeted descriptions and her ultimately compassionate eye make this journey hurt so good.”—Los Angeles Times

“Maile Meloy’s Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It reads like a Bruce Springsteen album sounds: raw with a tender wildness and loaded with adolescent ache. The nuanced depictions of small-town life in some of these stories make for a rich tableau of lovelorn cowboys, provincial lawyers, and renegade women. Don’t miss this sleeper hit of 2009.”—O, the Oprah Magazine

“If life is all about choices, as the saying goes, then what happens when we simply can’t make up our minds about what’s most important? In her second volume of short stories, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, acclaimed novelist Maile Meloy…cracks at our nagging desire to have it all in eleven tightly written, remarkably fluid narratives, most of which unfold in sleepy towns across Meloy’s native Montana.”—Elle

“After two well-received novels, Meloy returns to the short story, the form in which she made her notable debut and to which her lucid style is arrestingly well suited…Always true to her wide-ranging though consistently introspective characters, Meloy convincingly depicts the inchoate emotion that drives people, while also distilling meaning from it.”—Atlantic

“Readers drawn to the short story are sometimes disappointed upon reading a collection by a single author, even one they favor. The collection might seem padded, or the voice that struck us as original and engaging becomes boringly familiar halfway through. No such hazard awaits the readers of this new collection. The award-winning Meloy continues to deliver stories that please and surprise as each narrative’s small world unfolds…Verdict: Readers who have waited impatiently for Meloy’s return to this genre, perhaps the one in which Meloy herself seems most at home, have a treat in store.”—Library Journal (starred review)

Award-winning writer Maile Meloy’s return to short stories explores complex lives in an austere landscape with the clear-sightedness that first endeared her to readers.

Eleven unforgettable new stories demonstrate the emotional power and the clean, assured style that have earned Meloy praise from critics and devotion from readers. Propelled by a terrific instinct for storytelling, and concerned with the convolutions of modern love and the importance of place, this collection is about the battlefields—and fields of victory—that exist in seemingly harmless spaces, in kitchens and living rooms and cars. Set mostly in the American West, the stories feature small-town lawyers, ranchers, doctors, parents, and children and explore the moral quandaries of love, family, and friendship. A ranch hand falls for a recent law school graduate who appears unexpectedly—and reluctantly—in his remote Montana town. A young father opens his door to find his dead grandmother standing on the front step. Two women weigh love and betrayal during an early snow. Throughout the book, Meloy examines the tensions between having and wanting, as her characters try to keep hold of opposing forces in their lives: innocence and experience, risk and stability, fidelity and desire.

Knowing, sly, and bittersweet, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It confirms Maile Meloy’s singular literary talent. Her lean, controlled prose, full of insight and unexpected poignancy, is the perfect complement to her powerfully moving storytelling.

About the Author: MAILE MELOY’S short story collection, Half in Love, was a New York Times Notable Book in 2002. She won the 2001 Aga Khan Prize for best story in the Paris Review. Her work has also appeared in the New Yorker and Best New American Voices and has been nominated for a National Magazine Award. She lives in California.