STANDARD DEVIATION

STANDARD DEVIATION (a partial novel) centers around two couples and the jealousies that complicate their marriages: husband-and-wife Graham and Audra deal with near-infidelity in New York City, while Jane, a schoolteacher, and Duncan, a handyman, are just starting their romance in a small town in Michigan.

One chapter takes place at an origami convention where Graham has begun to suspect Audra of having an affair. In another, Jane hires Duncan to stage a car accident in order to get her elderly father to stop driving. Audra insists on an awkward friendship with Graham’s ex-wife and her new boyfriend. A small town wedding includes a reluctant bride and a jealous church organist. Although the two couples only meet each other once, fleetingly, their stories reflect back and forth on each other, illustrating overall themes of betrayal, imperfection, and, in the end, acceptance. Several of chapters of STANDARD DEVIATION have been published or are forthcoming in Glimmer Train, The Southern Review, and The Antioch Review. Katherine Heiny’s fiction has been anthologized in Nothing But You: Love Stories From The New Yorker, presented on Selected Shorts, optioned by Merchant-Ivory and HBO, and performed off-Broadway. She received her MFA from Columbia University and won the Henfield/Transatlantic award. She has also written YA novels. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her family.