Julia Claiborne Johnson

Julia Claiborne Johnson is a fiction writer who places eccentric characters inside sharply observed communities. Better Luck Next Time, her second novel, is set at a Nevada divorce ranch in 1938, when women could establish residency in the state before ending a marriage. The narrator, Ward, looks back decades later on his younger self working as a ranch hand at the Flying Leap. His recollection follows the guests, especially the wealthy Nina and the aviator Emily, through friendship, rivalry, romance, and consequences that resist the ranch’s promise of an easy new beginning. The 2021 Custom House edition presents this story. Johnson draws on the rhythm of classic screwball comedy while allowing hindsight to deepen its losses and compromises. Her debut, Be Frank with Me, also paired wit with an unconventional household, but Better Luck Next Time expands the setting into a temporary society shaped by class, law, and reinvention. The book’s historical detail and lively dialogue make Ward’s account both entertaining and quietly rueful.