by Emma Cline
First published 2020
A father retrieves his son from boarding school following a violent incident. A nanny working for celebrities seeks refuge in Laurel Canyon after becoming entangled in a media storm. A young woman monetizes her intimacy by selling undergarments to anonymous buyers. A disruptive arrival unsettles the calm atmosphere of a desert recovery facility. Emma Cline constructs ten stories around characters who teeter on precipices of their own making. These people hunger for genuine connection yet repeatedly engineer their own downfall. They inhabit worlds where family hierarchies breed toxicity and relationships become battlegrounds for control. The collection examines what happens when people abandon restraint, when they choose action over paralysis or paralysis over necessary action. Each story captures a moment when the veneer of normalcy cracks, exposing the raw impulses that drive human behavior. Cline dissects the gap between who her characters pretend to be and who they actually are, revealing the true price of their decisions.
Genres: fiction, short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Laurel Canyon, Desert
Period: Contemporary
368 pages · Paperback · Random House Large Print
Content warnings: emotional-abuse, toxic-relationship