First published 2026
A young woman walks through her ransacked apartment, taking inventory of what the burglars left behind. In another story, a teenager pores over obituaries in a weekly magazine, becoming fixated on the lives that have ended. Grandchildren gather to remember grandparents who showered them with love and others who withheld it. Artists and wannabe artists debate what separates good work from bad. Characters face serious illness, love that goes nowhere, and commitments they plan to honor. Some hit the jackpot. Others lose everything. Bordas writes about the puzzles of existence and mortality with dark humor and sharp self-awareness. She shows us our common, imperfect humanity without pretending to solve its riddles.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, short-story-collection
Vibes: dark-humor, intimate, introspective, melancholic, thought-provoking
Tropes: ensemble-cast, interconnected-stories, unreliable-memory
Period: 21st-century
304 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: death