First published 2022
A daughter deceives her immigrant parents about getting into a prestigious university and plots revenge when the lie unravels. A Black accountant grows tired of being mistaken for a drug dealer and decides to find his supposed doppelganger. A trans woman navigates her relationship with her activist lesbian friend while caring for her Vietnamese grandmother who escaped war. An American soldier in Fallujah struggles with PTSD after covering for his buddy who killed an Iraqi child. A young woman faces an abortion decision while grappling with environmental collapse. A son watches his father vanish into the woods and wonders whether he will stay forever in their crumbling trailer, washing dishes in a dying logging town, or finally escape. These seventeen stories and two graphic narratives feature characters from diverse backgrounds wrestling with gentrification, rural decline, and cultural displacement. Each person fights to build something meaningful in a country that feels increasingly divided.
Genres: fiction, short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: diverse-characters, found-family, social-commentary
Setting: Fallujah, Vietnam
Period: 21st-century
212 pages · Kindle Edition · Persea
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, mental-illness