Thirteen emotionally gripping short stories of loss and self-discovery told in both traditional and experimental forms, set in times ranging from the seventies to the near future, yet resonating today.
In “Indian Land,” a thirteen-year-old’s family is ordered to leave a Mohawk reserve, the only home he’s known. A woman spends Thanksgiving at her partner’s childhood home in ���Through the Woods,” only to find the concept of family may be more elusive than she thought. On the last bus back home to the suburbs, a recently demoted executive is harassed by a menacing thug who sits beside him in “The Empty Seat.” A high school teacher remembers when his father took him to “The Freeman Tavern” as a child. A twelve-year-old in “The Adventures of Tom Finn” tries to give his friend an adventure, even if he doesn’t want one. A young man hitchhikes to Mexico in “Thumbing My Way,” and stops at his aunt’s house, where the most formative event of his life took place years before.
“These efforts at intimacy only distance him from her. She can admit there’s no longer love between them, only a facsimile remains, a familiarity, a feeble obligation that comes from living under the same roof.”
Genre: Literary Fiction
In “Indian Land,” a thirteen-year-old’s family is ordered to leave a Mohawk reserve, the only home he’s known. A woman spends Thanksgiving at her partner’s childhood home in ���Through the Woods,” only to find the concept of family may be more elusive than she thought. On the last bus back home to the suburbs, a recently demoted executive is harassed by a menacing thug who sits beside him in “The Empty Seat.” A high school teacher remembers when his father took him to “The Freeman Tavern” as a child. A twelve-year-old in “The Adventures of Tom Finn” tries to give his friend an adventure, even if he doesn’t want one. A young man hitchhikes to Mexico in “Thumbing My Way,” and stops at his aunt’s house, where the most formative event of his life took place years before.
“These efforts at intimacy only distance him from her. She can admit there’s no longer love between them, only a facsimile remains, a familiarity, a feeble obligation that comes from living under the same roof.”
Genre: Literary Fiction
Used availability for Michael Whatling's Unsettling Dreams