Sam is in her early 30s, two years out of her English and Comparative Literature Ph.D. program, and, like many of her cohort, barely scraping by as an adjunct. When she lands a spot at Rosedale, an elite private college, as a last-minute replacement for an older professor, her problems seem temporarily solved. Sam is […]
“Four acres, steel fence, two warehouses, three forklifts, one-thousand cars, and a junkyard dog”; for the temperamental, uneducated Harry Saunders, his new wrecking yard in the desert was an empire to command. His 9-year-old daughter, Robyn, wrenched from suburban life in Laguna Beach, California, warmed up to it more slowly. She began working the junkyard […]
The table is where this loving Black family enjoys the first meal of the day; it’s where the children do homework and make cookies and where everyone prepares for fish fry Fridays. Extended family shares space here during somber moments, such as deaths, and on happier occasions, including birthdays, Kwanzaa, and other holidays. Grandpa regales […]
Actor-turned-author McCarthy, now in his 60s, begins with a comment from a young son who says, offhandedly, “You don’t really have any friends, do you, Dad?” McCarthy thinks, well, he has friends, but he doesn’t see them often. The resolve, then, that drives this narrative was to go seek out friends from his hell-raising, bibulous […]
“Earth is now a pale blue smudge,” writes Commander Oliver Ines from aboard the Talos. Growing up in a small English village, where he had celestial wallpaper in his bedroom, Ollie had no idea he would grow up to become one of the most famous astronauts of all time. As he floats through space with […]
After her boyfriend Carter’s funeral, art student Nieve Monroe drifts through a summer steeped in guilt and tinged with emotionally resonant colors. Raised by her superstitious maternal grandmother, Grandee, whose mystical sayings once felt foolish, Nieve now sees meaning in every hue: black for loss, red for love, indigo for goodbye. When she returns to […]
But Michael is in prison on Governors Island, their father is institutionalized at a psychiatric center, and Jonah has just been released from juvenile detention. His drawing skills earn him a spot at Harlem Heights’ High School of Music and Art, the chance of a lifetime for a boy from the South Bronx. At M […]
For six years Sasha has lived in Haven, the underground society built to withstand nuclear war. Since the war, since her family’s deaths, since discovering she doesn’t get sick like everyone else does, Sasha’s life has been full of death and overfull with grief. While working in the Ward, Haven’s limited hospital, she stays with […]
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 […]
On the title page a pale-skinned adult clothed in colorful garb stands among a grayscale forest. As the main text starts, the adult—now aged but wearing a similar outfit—walks with a youngster, apparently a grandchild. Observing and enjoying the vibrant, lush natural world around them, the narrator reflects on the different places the family has […]