by Gary Krist
First published 1994
In New Jersey suburbs and Brooklyn neighborhoods, ordinary people navigate the spaces between connection and isolation. A salesman struggles with uncertainty about his desires. A mortician faces the weight of daily encounters with loss. College administrators wrestle with professional and personal disappointments. Children observe adult mysteries they cannot fully grasp. Senior citizens confront changes they never anticipated. Lovers discover that intimacy can deepen loneliness rather than cure it. Each character moves through familiar routines while grappling with questions about identity and belonging. Krist writes with precision about people who exist on the margins of their own lives. These stories examine how separation shapes relationships and how uncertainty defines sexual identity. The collection reveals the discomfort that lives beneath surface normalcy, showing how misfits find their place in a world that often overlooks them.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-driven, ensemble-cast
Setting: New Jersey, Brooklyn
Period: 21st-century
256 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt