by Jim Shepard
First published 2007
A middle-aged Aeschylus stands at Marathon, still seeking his father's approval as he prepares for battle. In another time and place, a Victorian explorer drags his whaleboat across the Australian desert under a merciless sun. The first woman launched into space navigates her feelings for a fellow cosmonaut while their mission unfolds in the void above Earth. Two Texas football stars demolish their opponents, hoping their fathers will finally notice their dominance on the field. In revolutionary Paris, the chief executioner maintains his rational compassion even as his deadly work during the Terror slowly destroys everything he values. These eleven stories move from Chernobyl's aftermath to small-town Bridgeport, each narrator facing the gap between what they want and what the world offers them.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Marathon, Australian Desert, Earth, Chernobyl, Bridgeport
Period: Revolutionary Paris, Victorian Era, Space Age
224 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: death, war