These 11 stories are meditations on themes that are both timeless—women looking for love, longing for more from life, fighting for their dreams—and modern, filled with influencers and celebrity-driven culture and people living on the periphery of both. Through engaging and occasionally shocking stories, Rende deftly shows the balancing act between the online and performative […]
Gabby Greene is still figuring out what her life looks like. As a divorcee, mother of two, and fledgling spy, it’s hard to find the balance between intense espionage work and remembering to pack school lunches. There’s also the fact that her ex is keen on reconciliation while Gabby is actively navigating her feelings for […]
Gren Moritz is the newly elected Chief Minister for the Nations of Rivennia, and the first from Varcega. Varcegians believe in tradition; they eat farmed meat and practice arranged marriages (Gren’s wife, Lorelei, was carefully chosen by his grandparents). Gren’s main platform is “protecting humanity from the rise of ultrahumanism,” but his initial bill may […]
John Keating’s edgy first-person narrative jumps around over the decades from 1987 to 2021, studded with brilliant character sketches. Chief among them are Keating’s fellow teacher and former girlfriend, Enid Smeal, a dedicated artist with little time for personal interactions; her awkward son, Jacob; the boy’s classmate Clara Hightower, serious and calm beyond her years; […]
The titular pair have settled into second grade, but worrywart Shermy has plenty to contend with, from a substitute teacher who doesn’t follow the class schedule to anxieties about Shake’s possible upcoming move. Short sections, organized by month from December through February, contrast Shermy’s orderly nature and “fizzy and loud” Shake’s more laid-back one. On […]
In “Room,” an unnamed narrator finds herself locked inside a white room in Vienna, where she has come to finish a book, and becomes increasingly agitated. “Night,” the longest section by far, brings us another unnamed narrator in a room. This woman—a German writer—suffers from insomnia and spends her hours sifting through her own memories, […]
Raised in Denmark and shaped by a Nordic sense of stoicism and ambition, the author left home to study and build a cosmopolitan life in Toronto and New York. Beneath her successes—she had a good career, traveled, and was married—was a widening emptiness (“Happy-go-lucky was no longer my nature”). A toxic relationship and a mysterious […]
“The authors of these articles all have day jobs,” writes Doti in his preface. “Somehow, some way, they carved out enough time to experience and then record their adventures, pushing against the boundaries that often constrain the range of life’s offerings.” The contributors—Scott Chapman, Ryan Dahlem, Adam Doti, Lynne Doti, Daniele Struppa, and Dan Temianka—recount […]
Drugan’s father was a well-respected man around their suburban Boston-area town. The local dentist, he was known for his bedside manner, his local philanthropy, and his involvement in the town’s Catholic parish, which his family had attended for generations. The author knew a much different man from his public persona, however; his father seemed to […]
Bartov, a Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, offers a frank, sure-to-be-controversial analysis of Israel’s past and present, arguing that the country has “engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal actions” in Gaza in response to Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The native Israeli and Israel Defense Force veteran’s […]