by Joan Silber
First published 2014
This collection cannot be summarized through a single protagonist, as it presents twenty distinct short stories selected for the 2014 O. Henry Prize. The tales span continents and circumstances: a young American discovers love in Japan while a girl grows up among snake-handling religious fundamentalists. An elderly widower grieves his deceased wife as a clever guard dog plots another escape. The stories transport readers from Nigerian landscapes to Venetian canals, from an Icelandic volcanic eruption to a Wild West brothel. Each narrative captures a different human experience, whether exploring cultural displacement, family secrets, loss, or survival. The writers examine how people navigate love, faith, mortality, and identity across diverse settings and situations. These stories reveal the unexpected moments that define lives, from quiet epiphanies to dramatic confrontations, showing how ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances or find meaning in everyday struggles.
Genres: fiction, short-stories, literary-fiction, anthologies, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: diverse-perspectives, found-family, ordinary-lives
Setting: Iceland, Japan, Nigeria, Venice
Period: 21st-century
416 pages · Paperback · Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group