“These are terrific stories. The deep surprises their characters keep offering each other show a rare understanding of human nature. From a dying man’s marriage to a small town’s mysterious murders, the emergencies of ordinary life illuminate this book. A joy to read.”--Joan Silber

“The characters in Virginia Pye’s Shelf Life of Happiness experience their lives as a tangle they urgently need to understand before it’s too late. They’re experts on how to keep their hearts in reserve....yet all they want is to access the appreciative tenderness that’s waiting for them within their best selves. These are deft and moving stories.”--Jim Shepard

“Shelf Life of Happiness is remarkable. Virginia Pye writes with a sharp eye and a compassionate heart. Sly, insightful, and vivid, these are some of the best stories I have read in years. These tales amaze with their yearning, with their wisdom, and with their love.”--Jennifer Finney Boylan

“The damage, cost, and redemptive force of love appears again and again in this remarkable collection. But it’d be a mistake to think Pye is simply breaking our hearts. Underneath, she’s fracking the existential bedrock of our lives....Shelf Life of Happiness is an act of communion. Pye’s characters fall and break the way we fall and break, characters so real we’re caught in the desperate leaps their hearts take to survive. Wise, compassionate, beautiful and unsettling, these stories uncover the tough, elusive hope that holds us together.” --Charles Duffie, Heavy Feather Review

“...a deeply moving meditation on the complexity and potential generosity of love.”--Kirkus Reviews