In this collection of five stories, Chen explores themes of emotional isolation and dissatisfaction; her characters navigate turbulent interpersonal relationships while contending with sadness. In “Perfect House, Perfect Life,” a wife and mother feels the walls closing in around her, an emotional parallel to her downsizing of the family’s residence due to an equally decreasing […]
As a woman who had most of her six kids in her 30s, Larson knows what it’s like to be subjected to unsolicited thoughts, ideas, and criticisms from various people in her life. All of their input made her feel like she was “shrinking,” she says, but it also compelled her to explore constructive and […]
Potchky, a ring-tailed lemur, is a fussy eater; pal Nosh, a koala, is a more willing gourmet. Nosh wants to make latkes (Potchky: “What are latkes?” Nosh: “Yummy potato pancakes”) but Potchky whines: “The only potatoes I like are potato chips.” Potchky agrees to help Nosh prepare the treats but objects to the color of […]
“At home, I was the center of everything.” Wild Princess has it good and knows it. The words “She showered me with attention” are paired with an image of a pair of peach-colored human hands with painted fingernails giving Wild Princess a beauty treatment. One day some cardboard boxes appear, and “then the suitcases came […]
Joe’s superwealthy-by-marriage “Grandma B,” whom he adores, has befriended one-time protection racketeer Arman Babylon at the exclusive LA cancer treatment center where both are living. The repentant Babylon hires Joe to find his long-missing granddaughter, Twyla Mann, now 38, and tell her the woman she thinks is her mother actually isn’t—a domestic coverup instigated by […]
Etta Wheeler moved to Manhattan in 1873 with her husband, Charles, who had accepted a position as a journalist at The New York Daily News. Although married for nine years, the couple had no children. Etta, a devout Methodist, sought to make herself useful, and what happened next made her famous: On a missionary outing […]
In a world filled with people possessing fantastic powers, 15-year-old Alé Aragón was once deemed a Deficient, lacking an “accelerated ability” that many others have. But he survived a brutal fight, marking him as a Feral, a designation that means his ability—to come back from the dead—is outside the Common Six (such as the telekinesis […]
In the summer of 2003, the author, a NICU nurse, traveled to California after leaving an unhealthy relationship. A routine trip to the Santa Monica Farmers Market turned into a life-altering tragedy when 86-year-old Russell Weller’s “pedal error” caused his Buick to speed through the crowd, killing 10 and injuring many more. Cronin was hospitalized […]
Faraday (a pseudonym) has traveled to over 150 countries throughout his career, and he’s collected a wide array of lovers in each one. In often explicit detail, he recounts his adventures with (to pick two examples) a self-confessed Romanian criminal and an international porn star from Azerbaijan in this work, describing how he’s navigated both […]
This novel, its author writes, “was born out of the real grief of the West Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting,” when a gunman shot 10 girls at an Amish school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. While this book begins on that terrible morning in October, 2006, it doesn’t indulge in any violence, quickly switching to the voice of […]