Prescient and idiosyncratic stories about the cost and joys of caretaking from a "sharp-witted, ravishing" (New York Times) writer. These stunning stories, steeped in dark humor, startle and dismay, and introduce us to a cast of eccentric and wholly believable characters. Unexpected encounters confine and define the lives of strangers, while parents and partners navigate blended families and modern love: An older woman tells her waitress that she once left a newborn on church steps. A motel housekeeper makes a radical proposal to a guest. A teenager grapples with atheism and grief and eBay. A mother's world is disrupted and recharged after a neighborhood man gives her young daughter a telescope. Strange, heartfelt, sly, and wryly funny, Sarah Braunstein's stories ask us to confront the ways we try to make sense of our lives―and what happens when we escape from these preconceptions.
"Narrators Sarah Welborn and Matt Godfrey fully embrace the quirkiness of this short story collection. Welborn reads the stories led by female roles with an upbeat wryness, pausing on certain words and drawing them out and making some statements into questions, as if to poke fun at the bizarre turns of plot. Matt Godfrey, on the other hand, gives a buoyant nostalgia to the male leads, boys trying to find their place in the world. The vocal energy is sometimes at odds with the stories' darker messages, but it doesn't make the performance any less enjoyable.
Upbeat, intuitive performances bring a curious collection to life."