by Eric Puchner
First published 2007
A woman struggles to communicate without words in a foreign place. A child watches adults make choices that will reshape everything familiar. An immigrant discovers that starting over means losing pieces of who you once were. A tourist realizes that distance from home reveals uncomfortable truths about belonging. Eric Puchner places his characters at moments when their carefully constructed lives crack open. They fumble through conversations that matter too much, make decisions that surprise even themselves, and find connection in the most unlikely places. Some encounters turn hilarious just when they become unbearable. Others shift from ordinary to shocking in a single gesture. These people live in a world that seems designed to make them feel small and replaceable. Yet they keep reaching for something real. They keep trying to bridge the gaps between who they are and who they might become. Their stories capture those fragile moments when everything changes, when the ground shifts beneath familiar routines, when laughter and heartbreak arrive at exactly the same time.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-growth, fish-out-of-water, found-family
219 pages · Paperback · Scribner