"Joyously perverse. A unique and unpredictable collection that elevates the fatigue of simply trying to exist at the quarter pole of the 21st century to an art form."
—Jim Ruland, Los Angeles Times

"Lange's prose is smart and surprising, invigoratingly icy and delicious."
—Joy Williams, author of Concerning the Future of Souls

Read the story, "Hot Spot," at The New Yorker.

Read the story, "Day Care," at Granta.

From award-winning author Nora Lange comes a ransacking of the house of motherhood and matrimony.

Nora Lange’s debut novel, Us Fools, was praised as the “Great American Novel” by Molly Young in The New York Times, and “a razor-sharp critique of American capitalism” by Michael Schaub at NPR. Now, she turns her eye toward the daily exercise of getting by.

In “Heart Beats,” Carol and David arrive late to a Boston dinner party for a night of “messy socializing” with other couples, including a former cult-leader turned financial-advisor and a woman who learned of a “kinky sort of game” while riding public transit, details that she will reveal after the peach crumble. In “Island of Phaetons,” an expatriate living in Istanbul is called away from her daily life with “the husband” and “the friend who wanted more than friendship” to visit her mother, who notoriously makes bad decisions, and who has just arrived in Greece “with news” for her daughter, a tantalizing invitation that has her daughter immediately on a plane. In “Dog Star,” two figurines live out their dreams before succumbing to the truth that they have been assembled inside of a snow globe and will never go anywhere. In the title story, a new mother in Los Angeles navigates a job, a long-distance relationship with her husband, and her visiting mother, while hoping to find relief in daytime app sex.

These stories of lust, estrangement, and self-preservation are at once hilarious and savage. Day Care is a biting reflection on economic precarity, love, and peeing your pants.

"Lange has a Didion-like ability to recognize nuance, and then strangle it. Her voice is distinct, a style that is ambiguous while all-knowing, and funny."
—Hannah Korbel, Chicago Review of Books

"Day Care is an extraordinary record of our moment—of what it is like right here, right now. [Lange] asks of the page what far too few writers ask, and she ventures far—passionate, restless, full of wonder, not already decided, alive."
—Carole Maso, Electric Literature

"Brilliant... a collection of raunchy and weird and hysterical stories that exist in a sketch of our reality. Everything is recognizable, but a little askew... showcasing some pretty otherworldly talent from one of fiction’s most original voices."
—Will Schube, The Hobbyist

"Lange is a chronicler of all that is strange and secret about people, mining that strangeness for comedy and pathos... Lange, as readers of Us Fools will know, has a fondness for autodidacts and obsessives and is adept at blending esoteric references (ranging, in this story, from the Bible to contemporary art to ancient myth to Lydia Millet to the work of the Center for Land Use Interpretation) seamlessly into her own idiosyncratic worldview. The landfill, for the narrator, figures as a scapegoat for society’s many sins. Lange often writes in this mode, a kind of funhouse mirror of ecofeminist criticism; her women tend to be deadpan wits in a dying world."
—Meghan Racklin, The Brooklyn Rail

"Joyously perverse. A unique and unpredictable collection that elevates the fatigue of simply trying to exist at the quarter pole of the 21st century to an art form."
—Jim Ruland, Los Angeles Times

"Nora Lange follows up her dazzling debut novel Us Fools with Day Care, an electric short story collection that transforms the grotesqueries of modern life into comedy. Ranging from strange to surreal to simply laugh-out-loud funny, Lange’s stories offer a savage takedown on the lies we tell ourselves to get through the day. From two snow globe figurines coming to terms with the fact that they will never go anywhere to one of the most deliciously disastrous dinner parties ever put to paper, Day Care is the latest reminder that Nora Lange is an author to keep your eye on for years to come."
—Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books

"The world of these stories is a grotesque mirror image of our own, where repressive gender roles are amplified to the point of comedy. Excellent, biting satires from a unique feminist lens."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Lange’s well-honed stories build to stinging epiphanies. Those with a taste for acerbic wit will find much to enjoy."
—Publishers Weekly

"A piercing exploration of womanhood and fulfillment. While this collection satirizes weightier subjects, it’s nevertheless buoyed by its wry humor and Lange’s sharp eye. Ultimately, Day Care is a satisfying exploration of desire and fulfillment. These stories will linger long after readers have finished them, if only because they’re reminders that women deserve so much more."
—Emily Hall, MER Review

Nora Lange spoke to the Fiction Matters podcast for their 'Books That Matter' series, recommending Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work. Listen.

"The author of the breakout novel Us Fools blends realism and fabulism in stories about relationships, sex, and the search for meaning."
—Publishers Weekly - Spring's "Most Anticipated" Fiction

"Lange's prose is smart and surprising, invigoratingly icy and delicious."
—Joy Williams, author of Concerning the Future of Souls

"Read more than a couple of these slippery gems, and you run the risk of calling up friends and even strangers and saying, Hey, don't hang up—listen to this...!"
—Ed Park, Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Same Bed, Different Dreams

"In these stories that are insightful, deliciously weird, and often laugh-out-loud funny, Lange reminds us that life, real life, is a kind of delirium. Day Care has made me greedy; now I want to see more of the world, more of our beautiful batshit existence, through Nora Lange's lens."
—Maggie Smith, bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful

"Lange is unwilling, uninterested, and unsympathetic to storytelling that traffics in the maudlin, mundane, or murky. The stories of Day Care are brutal, hilarious, and relentless; they are pedal to the metal, which is to say: divine and not a little bit insane.”
—Hannah Pittard, author of If You Love It, Let It Kill You

"Nora Lange writes with the precision of Joy Williams, and the heart of George Saunders, in a voice that is all her own.”
—Daniel Alarcón, author of At Night We Walk in Circles

"The stories in Day Care are delicious paradoxes—found moments from daily life that have been extracted, exalted, and merged with the uncanny. In exquisite, highly-original prose, Nora Lange writes from the lonely heart of the modern world, where characters must behave erratically, dangerously, even badly, if they are to feel anything at all."
—Kevin Maloney, author of Horse Girl Fever and The Red-Headed Pilgrim

"Nora Lange's storytelling will force you to embrace the awkwardness that is the human experience. Day Care will leave readers feeling seen and emotionally exhausted while reflecting on what we do to just survive the day."
—Jenny Gilroy, E. Shaver Booksellers (Savannah, GA)

"This collection of stories is raw, funny, surprising, and at turns, both real and surreal. Nora Lange explores woman and motherhood through daily minutia, reveals its absurdities, and exposes how often life leaves us frustrated and unsatisfied; how we're mostly just getting through it as best we can."
—Alana Haley, Schuler Books (Grand Rapids, MI)

"In the short story collection Day Care we meet couples, parents, and their children all seen through Nora Lange's satirical and witty look at life. Day Care is a triumph and further cements Nora Lange as one of my favorite writers!"
—Caitlin Luce Baker, Island Books (Mercer Island, WA)

"A short story collection so compelling and lived-in that I devoured it in a matter of hours. On my second re-read, and it hasn't lost any of its power."
—Mick Kowaleski, Skylight Books (LA, CA)

Praise for Nora Lange's Us Fools:
"Lange writes in dense paragraphs full of harsh wisdom—vodka tossed on scraped knees—with the ideas and intensity of six novels in one. The result is a fully American artwork that shames, decimates, invents, and reinvents. And reinvents, and reinvents."
—Ryan Chapman, BOMB (Read interview.)

"Exquisitely funny... a novel that is uniquely and urgently about and for today, mapping the uncrossable distance between the coasts and the heartland, between the America we’ve been and the America we want to be. Its reward is to witness a rapturous and rare kind of truth. This savage American novel consumed me, as much as I consumed it."
—Eleanor Henderson, New York Times Book Review (Read review.)

"Great American Novels are still being published in 2024 and here is one of them."
—Molly Young, New York Times (Read review.)

"This novel is tender and exceptionally moving, but also mordantly funny in parts, and it’s a razor-sharp critique of American capitalism. And it’s written so beautifully that it’s hard to believe it’s a debut novel."
—Michael Schaub, NPR: Books We Love 2024 (Read review.)

"You could read Us Fools as a tight-knit family drama, an historical look at the farm crisis, or an exploration of how economic realities can force us to pick an identity. But more simply, Lange says, it's just about America."
—Andrew Limbong, NPR (Listen to interview.)

"Lange’s style is complex and comedic… For a debut novel, it is quite remarkable.”
—Jane Smiley, Los Angeles Times (Read review.)

"[An] accomplished first novel. The storytelling triumphs with wit, complexity, and vivid precision."
—Kassie Rose, The Longest Chapter (Read review.)

"Lange’s achingly stylish prose, brutal humor, and ferocious wit set this novel apart—she captures the tender and complex ways that growing up and growing older can impact sisterhood."
—Kimberly King Parsons, LitHub (Read essay.)

"Lange’s debut novel is a refreshingly sardonic take on the decaying ideal of the American dream, with an anti-capitalist tilt. At the end of it all, this is not just a brilliant bildungsroman: Like the classics that the Fareown sisters quote ad infinitum, it’s a lush, uncanny mythology itself."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"[A] resonant debut... Lange’s lucid story digs deep into the bonds of family and the alliances that are formed and retained across time and despite changing circumstances. Readers will be captivated."
—Publishers Weekly (Read review.)

"This story about two fiercely intelligent, ferocious, feral farm waifs suffering the effects of the 80's farm crisis is at turns outrageous, ponderous, and heartbreaking, but always somehow funny. There are so many ideas and concepts introduced it would take several readings to explore them all. A wonderous exploration of two sisters surviving America."
—Alana Haley, Schuler Books (Grand Rapids, MI)

"A fever dream tale of two sisters growing up in the decaying farm land of our recent past. Lange's style is full of raw and biting prose which makes it impossible to put down. A reminder the raw deal capitalism handed to American farmers and their families."
—Rosa Hernandez, Third Place Books (Seattle, WA)

"Set in the Midwest during the mid 80s farm crisis, Us Fools by Nora Lange follows precocious sisters Jo and Bernie as they navigate small town farm life with their often drunk father and chain-smoking mother. Jo is dramatic and impulsive, while Bernie is the caretaker. Narrated by Bernie in diary like short chapters and continuing up to 2009 Us Fools is a funny yet heartbreaking debut, I loved it!"
—Caitlin Baker, Island Books (Mercer Island, WA)

"Nora Lange's remarkably tender and moving Us Fools is a beautiful portrait of the parallel, intersecting, and occasionally derailing tracks of two sisters coming of age in an America as broken as ever. The backdrop is the Eighties Midwest farm crisis though Lange expertly weaves in classic literature, philosophy, and socioeconomics with a graceful touch, never heavy-handed in how she renders this sibling love story also a cautionary tale of all the innate impossibilities of capitalism in a golden age of consumerism. There is a resounding authenticity to Lange's novel that feels almost startling for a book wired mostly quietly. I think anyone who gets lost in these pages will find themselves haunted for life by Lange's truly singular and yet deeply, painfully, intimately American vision."
—Porochista Khakpour, author of Tehrangeles

"Past and present seep and bleed in this assured, richly ruminative, darkly funny debut. With exacting lyricism, Nora Lange chronicles the tumult and chaotic love between two unforgettable sisters. Us Fools is a marvel of brutal wit and wild charm—a brilliant, sweeping chronicle of a singular American family."
—Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light

"This is a novel of heartbreak and beauty, presided over by one of the most idiosyncratic and surprising comedic voices I’ve encountered in recent times. Lange’s narrator, the younger of two sisters, is the true joy of Us Fools, speaking directly to the reader in a deceptively casual voice that is witty and allusive and at the same manages to plumb the sadness hidden deep within our quotidian lives. In all, a smashing debut."
—T.C. Boyle, author of Blue Skies

"With wild dreams and tender considerations, Nora Lange’s Us Fools brings us that bond most tangled, mysterious, eternal and dazzlingly reflective: sisters. As farms and families spin, what center holds when the world lets go?"
—Samantha Hunt, author of The Dark Dark

"There is something of the end of America in Nora Lange's portrait of a farming family on a wild and anfractuous path to the brink of collapse. At turns hallucinatory and ruminative, fans of Joy Williams will find a familiar in Lange’s sharp-witted prose."
—Amelia Gray, author of Isadora

"Us Fools by Nora Lange is an epic-sized, gloriously-anarchic, blow-out adventure through recent American history. From the farm crisis of the 80’s and through the intellectual changes crossing into the new millennium, the novel follows the joys and heartbreaks of one farm family as it’s rocked through the wild, political, hilarious, weird, disturbing and occasionally comforting changes in American life. How are we supposed to survive as Americans anyway? Can we? I felt hints of Marilynne Robinson and David Foster Wallace here in this amazing work, and with its smart, rhapsodic language, it feels like Roberto Bolaño’s baton has been passed to Nora Lange."
—Robin McLean, author of Pity the Beast

“Us Fools is one of those special books that reorders the world and makes everything new again — language, family, history, fear, love. Nora Lange writes with the precision of Joy Williams, and the heart of George Saunders, in a voice that is all her own. You won’t forget this novel.”
—Daniel Alarcón, author of At Night We Walk in Circles

"Us Fools is a boisterous, irreverent, and moving novel about two sisters growing up in an America that doesn't much care for them or their Midwestern farming family. With comic tenderness and with an unforgettable, ferocious voice, Nora Lange paints a remarkable portrait of connection and alienation, of love and heartbreak, and all points in between. "
—Edan Lepucki, author of Time's Mouth

"Us Fools reimagines the intergenerational family saga as a gobsmacked midwestern modern gothic. This novel is an explosion of ideas and a feast of language—a crazy quilt of bafflement, history, love, and danger—made unforgettable by the central sisters Fareown, whose binary star guides us through the wild heartlands of Nora Lange’s matchless mind."
—Justin Taylor, author of Reboot

"Midwest farm life in the 1980s gets an inimitable revision through the eyes of the brilliant and unsettling Fareown sisters — filled with insight, sex, and unpredictable action, Lange’s provocative debut dazzles and will be like nothing you’ve read this year."
—J. Ryan Stradal, author of Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club

"Lange’s voice shines in this wonderful debut."
—Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The Idiot

Nora Lange's debut novel Us Fools was awarded the The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction, named a best book of 2024 by The Boston Globe and NPR, a Los Angeles Times bestseller, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The Believer, BOMB, Hazlitt, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Brown University and is a fellow at USC’s Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities. She recently moved to Salt Lake City with her family.

Visit the author page for Nora Lange.

• April 6 — King's English, Salt Lake City UT
• April 8 — Skylight Books, LA CA
• April 9 — Books Are Magic, Brooklyn NY — with Molly Young
• April 11 — Politics & Prose, Washington DC — with Tope Folarin
• April 12 — Rough Drafts Bookstore, Kingston NY — with Ryan Chapman
• April 13 — Franklin Park Reading Series, Brooklyn NY
• April 14 — RiffRaff Bookstore, Providence RI
• April 18-19 — LA Times Festival of Books
• April 23 — Tomorrow Bookstore, Indianapolis IN
• April 24 — Exile in Bookville, Chicago IL — with Lindsay Hunter
• April 25 — Day Party Festival, Iowa City IA
• June 1 — Powell's Bookstore, Portland OR — with Kathleen Boland

1. In "Heart Beats," the specters of dissatisfaction and envy haunt Carol, David, and the other party goers. Do you believe they find content in the game they all play at the end of the story?

2. In "Last Boob Feed," it is suggested that the baby belongs to and comes from nature, is “of the forest.” What might this mean for the relationship between a child and her mother, such as this story’s narrator?

3. In "Island of Phaetons," how would you compare the roles Rebecca’s husband and her friend who wants more than friendship play in her life? What would you say about the role she plays in theirs?

4. In "Hotspot," the sister wears desire on her sleeve, which literally manifests as rashes on her skin. Would her life be different if she could keep her desires a secret? Would ours be different if we couldn’t?

5. In the conclusion of "Hotspot," the brother, despite all his success and criticism of his sister’s lifestyle, takes refuge in her studio apartment. Would you consider one sibling more “lost” than the other? Happier?

6. In "Dog Star," social expectations are very real in this world that appears to be, quite appropriately, a snowglobe surrounded by spectating creators. What do you believe the snowglobe, creators, Alice, and the mothers might represent?

7. In "The Craftsman," at first it seems the married couple downstairs might envy the exciting lives of the young people living above them, but the upstairs girl’s riddle at the end of the story might make them reconsider their feelings. Do you think you could solve the riddle?

8. In "Encounter Beach," why do you think the narrator decides to stay on the Cape? What might this say about what her marriage was missing? What do you think she does with the boning knife at the end of the story?

9. In "Fork, what does wearing the oversized striped orange sweater mean for the narrator? What about having the fork tattoo? Are we nothing more than how we represent ourselves, deliberately or not, to others?

10. In "Owls Yawn, Too," why do you think the narrator is “besotted” with the owl? Do you think the feelings she has about her family and her job contribute to her devotion to the owl? What might the owl represent?

11. In the story "Day Care," why do you think the narrator was dissatisfied with the Disney Engineer from Duluth and her search for daytime sex, opting to join her husband in Utah? Might her mom have had anything to do with it?

12. While motherhood and matrimony are the primary overarching themes throughout all of Day Care’s short stories, what might you say are some of the other topics being interrogated? American culture? Societal expectations? Happiness?

—Discussion questions written by Luis Sanchez.

Read the story, "Hot Spot," at The New Yorker.

Read the story, "Day Care," at Granta.

CREDITS:
Cover design: Eric Obenauf.
Cover photo: sareh Askarzadeh.
Author photograph: Helki Frantzen.

PUBLICATION INFO:
TERRITORY: U.S. & Canada
FORMAT: Paperback Original (1st printing, gatefold)
LIST PRICE: $18.95
PAGES: 216
PRINT ISBN: 9781953387578
DIGITAL ISBN: 9781953387585
PUB DATE: April 7, 2026
SIZE: 5.5" x 7.5"