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Cravings
Opening with “Hors d’oeuvres” and closing with a “Feast,” the stories in Cravings pulse with longing, missed opportunities, recriminations, and joy. Garnett Kilberg Cohen leads readers through acutely crafted explorations of the way events shape and change our lives, sometimes for the better and sometimes in ways that haunt us forever. Love, friendship, childhood, parenthood, and leaving home—all these experiences of desire, driven by the unrelenting passage of time—form the heart of this charismatic collection.
Kilberg Cohen’s captivating and vulnerable characters often recognize their shortcomings and past mistakes, but cannot always rise above them. One woman learns to forgive her husband’s ex; another fears her love of salty snacks caused a family tragedy. A stoic rural community drives a newcomer out of town; a young man’s entire life is colored by a traumatic childhood event at a zoo. Focusing on the specific, unforgettable moments that reveal our connections to one another, Cravings offers an expansive vision of humanity that lingers long after the final page is turned.
Kilberg Cohen’s captivating and vulnerable characters often recognize their shortcomings and past mistakes, but cannot always rise above them. One woman learns to forgive her husband’s ex; another fears her love of salty snacks caused a family tragedy. A stoic rural community drives a newcomer out of town; a young man’s entire life is colored by a traumatic childhood event at a zoo. Focusing on the specific, unforgettable moments that reveal our connections to one another, Cravings offers an expansive vision of humanity that lingers long after the final page is turned.
- GenresShort Stories
155 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 31, 2023
3 people are currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
Garnett Kilberg Cohen
9 books8 followersGarnett Kilberg Cohen is the author of three story collections: Lost Women, Banished Souls; How We Move the Air; and Swarm to Glory. She has taught creative writing at Columbia College Chicago for more than twenty-five years.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 29, 2023
these hardly felt like short stories! the characters were so fleshed out & complete & satisfying, I was so connected to every one!
December 7, 2023
|| CRAVINGS ||
#gifted @kayepublicity
✍🏻
I was so pleasantly surprised with this collection! These twelve stories explore memory, longing, tangled lives, joy, the past haunting the present, the processing of trauma, and our connections to each other. Each story is original and layered with fully realized characters, which is rare to find throughout an entire collection. Once I started this I couldn't put it down as each one gave way to the next I was pulled deeper into these ordinary so very human lives. I hadn't read any of Garnett Kilberg Cohen's work before but now I want to seek out more. Hers is reminiscent of works by the great Grace Paley.
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
#gifted @kayepublicity
✍🏻
I was so pleasantly surprised with this collection! These twelve stories explore memory, longing, tangled lives, joy, the past haunting the present, the processing of trauma, and our connections to each other. Each story is original and layered with fully realized characters, which is rare to find throughout an entire collection. Once I started this I couldn't put it down as each one gave way to the next I was pulled deeper into these ordinary so very human lives. I hadn't read any of Garnett Kilberg Cohen's work before but now I want to seek out more. Hers is reminiscent of works by the great Grace Paley.
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
November 1, 2025
SO GOOD each story is so different and each narrator is so captivating. Twists where you wouldn’t expect them and vivid images that make the little hairs on your arms stand on end!!
March 4, 2024
I truly enjoyed reading these short stories.
Two in the collection were particularly poignant for me. In "Her Life in Parties," I resonated with the protagonist's epiphany, a moment of self-realization where parties in one's youth lose their luster.
Similarly, "The Goodbye Party" presents a group of individuals thrust together by circumstance, each bearing their unique burdens and aspirations, only to find themselves bound by an unforeseen permanence. This narrative captures the transient nature of human connections and the profound impact of shared experiences on shaping our perceptions of who we are.
Read it!
Two in the collection were particularly poignant for me. In "Her Life in Parties," I resonated with the protagonist's epiphany, a moment of self-realization where parties in one's youth lose their luster.
Similarly, "The Goodbye Party" presents a group of individuals thrust together by circumstance, each bearing their unique burdens and aspirations, only to find themselves bound by an unforeseen permanence. This narrative captures the transient nature of human connections and the profound impact of shared experiences on shaping our perceptions of who we are.
Read it!
April 12, 2024
What a terrific collection.
I’ve known Garnett since I first began teaching at Columbia College (Chicago) in the late 1980s. She ran the writing center and had a cooler-than-the-rest-of-us way of offering advice and a place to hang in a department with limited adjunct office space. And she was already a model of how to think about an academic career that spans teaching with staying creative.
So I walked into this expecting something good. And, when I say it’s even better than I expected, I mean that it’s as good as I imagined it would be but somehow more than that.
Throughout the collection, Garnett explores a range of character types, perspectives, structures, and voices. Each story is different when I think about how to describe it, yet they all fit a certain tone – the angle (generally) of someone who’s survived something but still wanting something. As the title says, there are ‘cravings’ throughout, but those cravings don’t define the individuals who have them, and they don’t overshadow everything else.
That is, these cravings aren’t “grotesques” in the way of Winesburg, Ohio’s characters – a book that the protagonist of “Ogden, Ohio” here finds inspirational in a place where she has a close call with a charismatic former high school crush who eventually threatens violence. Instead, they add dimension to each person, becoming one of many elements to define them.
I’m not sure what Garnett may have set herself as a formal goal in writing these (maybe I’ll get the chance to ask her) but I get the impression she was looking for characters who –in the midst of whatever else was going on – had some peculiar hunger or, well, craving.
Take the first story, “Hors d’oeuvres.” Cassie is a young girl who craves olives and pretzels so badly that she risks tightrope walking kitchen counters to find her parents’ stash. When she drops a jar of olives, it may or may not have affected (in her mind) her father’s fatal car crash. In a way that’s full of skill, Garnett takes us from that funny and excruciating scene to a larger lens on Cassie’s life. We see her life in full and recognize that peculiar scene as a footnote, yet it’s there always – not quite defining her but amplifying what we know of her.
Or “Noir.” Carl is something of an underachiever, at least in his wife Mary’s eyes. Their daughter Mary has a condition that will keep her from living beyond her 40s, and her medicines are cripplingly expensive. But he lacks the professional ambition to make as much money as he might. So, they’re heavily insured, and the ‘noir’ situation slowly emerges that he’s worth more dead than alive. The story opens with Mary dictating a suicide note that she expects him to write and sign. It’s there – if she finds a way to off him, it could solve their money woes.
But, and this is part of the joy of these stories where the ‘craving’ is part of the landscape without defining it, that possibility never does more than hover. Their lives go on, and Carl realizes he’s being tested. Or, in perhaps an even subtler gesture, he realizes Mary asked him to write the note only because she needed to test herself, to work through her own despair, and that she may no longer be thinking about any of it. It’s a glimpse of one path the couple may have traveled, a path striking enough for us to imagine it, but it doesn’t define their lives.
“Her Life in Parties” seems to be the inspiration for the striking cover image of a woman sitting in a pool outside an apartment party inside. Andrea is going to a book signing for her ex-boyfriend. She’s a modestly successful writer, and he’s just launched a book large enough for him to switch to full-time writing. She could and should be jealous, but she isn’t. Not quite. She processes the experience by recalling her ‘life in parties,’ the way they call on us to be a certain version of ourselves, to perform a public persona that is both real and exaggerated. So, we see her ‘life in parties’ as she navigates a difficult social challenge. She does it with grace, in what should be the absence of plot to a story. But, because Garnett gives such depth to her, the story is still quietly compelling.
And, in what may be the best story here – it’s really hard to say, I could nominate more than half of the 13 for that honor – we get “My Practice Life.” Our narrator has lost her husband young, and she has largely raised her niece. They bond over wondering about the nature of ‘life,’ about the random car accidents and cancers that can change so much, that have brought them together but that might have been different.
In the course of a surprisingly short story (as I look back on all that goes on it in), they eventually go to a ‘past lives’ seminar where she may or may not experience a former life. She’s left to wonder how much of what she has known is, as the title says, a ‘practice life,’ a way of experiencing the world that might have been different.
And, somehow, in keeping with the subtle skill we see throughout, Garnett lets us see that this experience doesn’t define her. It’s one way of thinking about her life, a life that we see telescoping from a small scene to her life in full, to an “after” that feels both lonely and fulfilling in the way she and her niece drift apart while still caring for each other.
Really, really good stuff. As I say, a terrific collection.
I’ve known Garnett since I first began teaching at Columbia College (Chicago) in the late 1980s. She ran the writing center and had a cooler-than-the-rest-of-us way of offering advice and a place to hang in a department with limited adjunct office space. And she was already a model of how to think about an academic career that spans teaching with staying creative.
So I walked into this expecting something good. And, when I say it’s even better than I expected, I mean that it’s as good as I imagined it would be but somehow more than that.
Throughout the collection, Garnett explores a range of character types, perspectives, structures, and voices. Each story is different when I think about how to describe it, yet they all fit a certain tone – the angle (generally) of someone who’s survived something but still wanting something. As the title says, there are ‘cravings’ throughout, but those cravings don’t define the individuals who have them, and they don’t overshadow everything else.
That is, these cravings aren’t “grotesques” in the way of Winesburg, Ohio’s characters – a book that the protagonist of “Ogden, Ohio” here finds inspirational in a place where she has a close call with a charismatic former high school crush who eventually threatens violence. Instead, they add dimension to each person, becoming one of many elements to define them.
I’m not sure what Garnett may have set herself as a formal goal in writing these (maybe I’ll get the chance to ask her) but I get the impression she was looking for characters who –in the midst of whatever else was going on – had some peculiar hunger or, well, craving.
Take the first story, “Hors d’oeuvres.” Cassie is a young girl who craves olives and pretzels so badly that she risks tightrope walking kitchen counters to find her parents’ stash. When she drops a jar of olives, it may or may not have affected (in her mind) her father’s fatal car crash. In a way that’s full of skill, Garnett takes us from that funny and excruciating scene to a larger lens on Cassie’s life. We see her life in full and recognize that peculiar scene as a footnote, yet it’s there always – not quite defining her but amplifying what we know of her.
Or “Noir.” Carl is something of an underachiever, at least in his wife Mary’s eyes. Their daughter Mary has a condition that will keep her from living beyond her 40s, and her medicines are cripplingly expensive. But he lacks the professional ambition to make as much money as he might. So, they’re heavily insured, and the ‘noir’ situation slowly emerges that he’s worth more dead than alive. The story opens with Mary dictating a suicide note that she expects him to write and sign. It’s there – if she finds a way to off him, it could solve their money woes.
But, and this is part of the joy of these stories where the ‘craving’ is part of the landscape without defining it, that possibility never does more than hover. Their lives go on, and Carl realizes he’s being tested. Or, in perhaps an even subtler gesture, he realizes Mary asked him to write the note only because she needed to test herself, to work through her own despair, and that she may no longer be thinking about any of it. It’s a glimpse of one path the couple may have traveled, a path striking enough for us to imagine it, but it doesn’t define their lives.
“Her Life in Parties” seems to be the inspiration for the striking cover image of a woman sitting in a pool outside an apartment party inside. Andrea is going to a book signing for her ex-boyfriend. She’s a modestly successful writer, and he’s just launched a book large enough for him to switch to full-time writing. She could and should be jealous, but she isn’t. Not quite. She processes the experience by recalling her ‘life in parties,’ the way they call on us to be a certain version of ourselves, to perform a public persona that is both real and exaggerated. So, we see her ‘life in parties’ as she navigates a difficult social challenge. She does it with grace, in what should be the absence of plot to a story. But, because Garnett gives such depth to her, the story is still quietly compelling.
And, in what may be the best story here – it’s really hard to say, I could nominate more than half of the 13 for that honor – we get “My Practice Life.” Our narrator has lost her husband young, and she has largely raised her niece. They bond over wondering about the nature of ‘life,’ about the random car accidents and cancers that can change so much, that have brought them together but that might have been different.
In the course of a surprisingly short story (as I look back on all that goes on it in), they eventually go to a ‘past lives’ seminar where she may or may not experience a former life. She’s left to wonder how much of what she has known is, as the title says, a ‘practice life,’ a way of experiencing the world that might have been different.
And, somehow, in keeping with the subtle skill we see throughout, Garnett lets us see that this experience doesn’t define her. It’s one way of thinking about her life, a life that we see telescoping from a small scene to her life in full, to an “after” that feels both lonely and fulfilling in the way she and her niece drift apart while still caring for each other.
Really, really good stuff. As I say, a terrific collection.
November 23, 2023
This is a beautifully written collection of short stories focused on the complex inner lives of interesting characters. My favorite “Her Life in Parties” perfectly captures awkward party interactions and the desire to escape.
November 16, 2023
Wonderful short stories. Engaging, bb fun writing.
November 4, 2023
I devoured Garnett Kilberg Cohen’s new short story collection, Cravings (see what I did there?). Each of the twelve stories plunges the reader into a new scenario that feels authentic and even familiar, and then layers in complications that lead to unexpected discoveries. The openings are often deceptively mundane: a girl craves the olives her mother buys for parties; a woman attends her ex’s book release party; a marriage frays as two parents struggle to care for their severely disabled child; an elderly man is buffeted by the wind as he walks in downtown Chicago. But soon the story deepens, growing richer and often darker as the larger context of a current dilemma is revealed.
The tone is intimate and personal, enlivened with flashes of humor. The perspective is often that of someone looking back at decisions made decades ago, exploring their present-day repercussions. There’s an acknowledgment of an odd reality for those of us who came of age before social media: the fact that friends and lovers long lost in the mists of time might suddenly resurface on Facebook or Instagram. In “Breaking News,” for example, the narrator sees a reporter on TV who is the daughter of an ex-boyfriend. “I thought your father was gone for good, in that strange country of the past with all the buried time capsules. If not for the Internet, he would have been. We would not have been able to meet for coffee in Boston fifteen years ago, sit at that little wobbly table on the sidewalk, and nostalgically recall the wobbly card table in the apartment over the soup kitchen.” Live long enough and life becomes a spiral, circling between past and present in unpredictable ways. Especially if you’re on Facebook.
Many of the stories contain unexpected twists—not in terms of dramatic actions, but quiet revelations that upend previous assumptions. In another example from “Breaking News,” the narrator thinks about her ex’s daughter, whom she has never met: “I doubt I could ever explain to you, a face on television, how deeply we—you and I—are linked.” Part of what links them is the narrator’s history with the reporter’s father, the details of his past that his daughter will never know. But there’s more than nostalgia here—there’s a secret, one that could have affected the very existence of his daughter.
The stories in Cravings invite multiple readings and further contemplation. This stunning collection will certainly satisfy your cravings, while leaving you hungry for more.
The tone is intimate and personal, enlivened with flashes of humor. The perspective is often that of someone looking back at decisions made decades ago, exploring their present-day repercussions. There’s an acknowledgment of an odd reality for those of us who came of age before social media: the fact that friends and lovers long lost in the mists of time might suddenly resurface on Facebook or Instagram. In “Breaking News,” for example, the narrator sees a reporter on TV who is the daughter of an ex-boyfriend. “I thought your father was gone for good, in that strange country of the past with all the buried time capsules. If not for the Internet, he would have been. We would not have been able to meet for coffee in Boston fifteen years ago, sit at that little wobbly table on the sidewalk, and nostalgically recall the wobbly card table in the apartment over the soup kitchen.” Live long enough and life becomes a spiral, circling between past and present in unpredictable ways. Especially if you’re on Facebook.
Many of the stories contain unexpected twists—not in terms of dramatic actions, but quiet revelations that upend previous assumptions. In another example from “Breaking News,” the narrator thinks about her ex’s daughter, whom she has never met: “I doubt I could ever explain to you, a face on television, how deeply we—you and I—are linked.” Part of what links them is the narrator’s history with the reporter’s father, the details of his past that his daughter will never know. But there’s more than nostalgia here—there’s a secret, one that could have affected the very existence of his daughter.
The stories in Cravings invite multiple readings and further contemplation. This stunning collection will certainly satisfy your cravings, while leaving you hungry for more.
October 22, 2023
“Though I didn’t share it with Heidi, I secretly thought it would be even nicer if instead of going back to former lives, we could go back earlier in our current lives for a do-over....Even nicer to go back and find out all the horrendous things that had happened to us were just practice lives, like practice tests, that could be wiped out entirely to make way for more opportunities when we entered our real lives.”
Cravings by Garnett Kilberg Cohen is a breathtaking collection of stories in which the characters exhibit a powerful desire for something—a father’s love, a grander life, closure, time, friendship. I don’t remember ever reading a short story collection that I loved as much from the opening story to the finale. Cohen has mined the very gems that define the intricate stories of our lives. Hope, disappointment, longing, failure, love, and acceptance resonant throughout this collection.
“Was there ever a moment when I was right in the middle? When just enough was behind me and just enough ahead? Is so, I wish I had been conscious enough to recognize the moment. It would have been nice if someone had tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, you’re here—take a last look back and a deep breath before moving forward.’”
Thank you to Kaye Publicity for providing a review copy.
Cravings by Garnett Kilberg Cohen is a breathtaking collection of stories in which the characters exhibit a powerful desire for something—a father’s love, a grander life, closure, time, friendship. I don’t remember ever reading a short story collection that I loved as much from the opening story to the finale. Cohen has mined the very gems that define the intricate stories of our lives. Hope, disappointment, longing, failure, love, and acceptance resonant throughout this collection.
“Was there ever a moment when I was right in the middle? When just enough was behind me and just enough ahead? Is so, I wish I had been conscious enough to recognize the moment. It would have been nice if someone had tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, you’re here—take a last look back and a deep breath before moving forward.’”
Thank you to Kaye Publicity for providing a review copy.
February 13, 2024
Garnett Kilberg Cohen’s 4th story collection is about people of all kinds who confront past failures, previous mistakes, or moments they wish they could do over. A man recalls a fall that changed his family’s life, a woman thinks about an abortion that went bad, an aging hippie confronts the death of his best friend – these are detailed, well-told, poignant stories that will stay with you.
I was honored to interview the author for the New Books Network: https://newbooksnetwork.com/cravings
I was honored to interview the author for the New Books Network: https://newbooksnetwork.com/cravings
November 8, 2023
The characters in Cravings demanded my full attention and my deepest empathy. Kilberg Cohen crafts their voice and their circumstances brilliantly, revealing the moment around which the rest of their life is tangled. Each of them yearns for something different, but as I turned the last page, I knew what I wanted: one more story.
January 8, 2024
This book captivated me from the first story until the last! In the beginning I thought this book would be all about food cravings, however, that was far from the truth. Each story depicts a different type of craving, from human interaction to driving. It's a definite must read!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews