Synopsis: A man buys a leather jacket he cannot afford to convince his former lover that he has moved on. A widow discovers that, at her wife's funeral, she is considered a family friend. A mother publicly celebrates her acceptance of her son's sexuality while refusing to attend his wedding. And a sixty-eight-year-old woman escapes the obligations of caregiving for an afternoon that belongs entirely to her.

Across fifteen darkly comic stories, the book explores the complicated arrangements people make in the name of love, family, loyalty, and respectability. Parents refuse to relinquish authority over their grown children. Lovers confuse generosity with control. Ordinary humiliations become elaborate private dramas, and the smallest acts of rebellion acquire unexpected significance.

Sharp, intimate, and frequently absurd, Please Don't Tell My Mother I Was Here is a collection about the secrets we keep, the roles we perform, and the peculiar ways the people who love us can make it so difficult to be ourselves.

Manuscript available upon request.