First published 2019
In these five stories, Johnson's narrators confront the weight of accumulated years and the strange ways life circles back on itself. An aging writer recalls his friendship with a fellow artist who died young. A man attends his high school reunion and finds himself disoriented by the passage of time and the faces of former classmates. Another narrator reflects on his father's death and the mysterious connections that bind the living to the dead. Throughout the collection, characters grapple with loss, aging, and the unexpected moments when the past resurfaces to illuminate the present. Johnson writes with characteristic clarity about ordinary people facing extraordinary realizations about their own mortality and the inexplicable forces that shape their lives.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
207 pages · Paperback · Random House Trade Paperbacks