Famous Fathers

Ehrhardt’s first book is full of stories about women and girls who toy with adultery and indiscretion; a few, as in the titular story, even flirt with father/daughter incest. Her characters, all living in or around New Orleans, are flawed and selfish, and yet it’s impossible to avert one’s gaze. Each story is like a perfectly wrapped present you didn’t know you wanted until you received it.

Ehrhardt’s characters are both odd and familiar people; if you secretly aren’t them, you probably know them. In “Tell Me in Italian,” a daughter who is having an affair with a married man helps her mother catch her husband in his love nest with one of his students. The type of moral dilemmas this situation could present don’t weigh on Ehrhardt’s characters. They aren’t filled with self-loathing or guilt like a good adulterer should be, and that in itself is refreshing. The “bad” women don’t come to a worse end; they simply go on living their complicated lives. Stephen Elliott’s excellent My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up comes to mind as a comparison, though Ehrhardt is less frank, settling for quietly unsettling.

The antidote for chick lit, Ehrhardt’s characters make the same questionable choices again and again. Her beautifully simple and flowing prose guides them through their damaged lives and toward a measure of, if not forgiveness, then understanding.—Beth Dugan