The Boys of My Youth

Beard came to writing late, and this collection of autobiographical essays was the only book she published until her late fifties, but clearly she was paying attention all along. She's drawn by a restless, lonely fellow feeling to the girls of her Midwest youth as well as the boys, to dogs and chickens and cars and midriff tops and cigarettes other people were smoking. Especially in the central essay, "The Fourth State of Matter" (the one she's known for, for good reason), she can be so funny it hurts; she doesn't break your heart in one way, but a thousand.