Bøger udgivet af Vine Leaves Press

"A literary diet guaranteed to shed verbal flab." Ann S. EpsteinRead a story between sips of coffee, while running errands, or on your commute home. Vine Leaves Press 50-word stories are a welcome break from a busy day. The 50 Give or Take newsletter series delivers a bite-sized piece of literature straight into your inbox. This anthology contains our fourth year's worth of stories."Sometimes what you leave out tells more of the story than your words can." Peter Snell

"A kaleidoscopic gem that adeptly showcases how the shameful misdeeds of the past reverberate into modern acts of violence... An emotional tour de force." David Jackson Ambrose, author of Unlawful DisorderGabi Keefer flees Holocaust-era Germany with nothing but her husband, her nephew, and the clothes on her back, but that isn't the whole story.Over generations, her granddaughter, Lena, struggles with drug addiction and an unplanned pregnancy; her sort-of nephew, Zane, grieves for his wife three years after her death in an antisemetic mass shooting; and her great-niece, Miranda, advocates for Palestinian liberation against her family's wishes.Each character's tale begs the questions: What does it mean to be part of a family, what does it mean to survive, and is that enough?Trigger warning: Content in this book includes depictions or mentions of ableism, anti-semitism, characters struggling with mental health, death and grief, drug abuse, domestic violence, gun violence, homophobia, misogyny, racism, statutory rape, suicide, xenophobia, and Zionism.

"A sweaty, funny examination into suburban marriage, motherhood, social status and all the other reasons I left New Jersey." Joel Stein, columnist for Entertainment Weekly and the Los Angeles TimesThe last person Liz Alterman expects to hear from during her Thanksgiving prep is her husband, Rich. He never calls from his job at a busy Manhattan newsroom. And he never will again, because he's just been laid off. Two months later, Liz is downsized, too.At first, Rich is enchanted with his new leisurely lifestyle. But when he's still unemployed six months later, his euphoric mood devolves into depression and despair. It falls to Liz to figure out how to support their family of five and keep up appearances in their well-to-do suburb, where even nannies drive the latest model Lexus.Sad Sacked blends the wit of Nora Ephron's Heartburn with the madcap hilarity of Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette to expose the pressure on women to put on a happy face even as their world falls apart. In Liz Alterman's gifted hands, we laugh until we cry about what happens when the bottom drops out.

"A dark hymn to pre-Victorian London in all its grotty glory." Nick Perry, author of The LoopCharles Dickens is a newly famous author and a man who has only just married. He thinks that he is about to become a father. Why, then, does he go wandering London after dark and why, under the influence of a famous clown, does he begin an affair with Sarah, a barmaid who works in a North London pub?While his own descriptions of sex barely exist, he becomes immersed in an affair so all-consuming that his life begins to fall apart. He takes to drink, he develops a liking for rough company, he even steals a necklace. Where will it end?During a Christmas entertainment held in his own house, Dickens, Sarah, and his wife edge towards a confrontation that has the potential to ruin him for ever.

"A world both familiar and nightmarish. Eerie, atmospheric and immediately gripping." Charlie Carroll, author of The LipYou're on your own and you shouldn't be. Your partner is missing. The streets are empty. Even the birds have disappeared. What do you do?It's 6:05am one Tuesday morning, and Lexi Peters is alone. Her partner, her friends, her neighbours have all vanished without a trace. The entire town is deserted. Gathering every ounce of courage, she sets out to explore the streets, seeking any sign of life. Her only companions are a coy black cat and a lurking fog that seems to follow her every step.On the same morning, her partner Finn awakens to an empty house. Recalling the blazing argument they had the night before, he assumes Lexi has snuck off somewhere to cool down. But she doesn't return.Time passes. Or not. Lexi is stranded on that Tuesday morning, while Finn hurtles through the years at increasing speed.Can Lexi and Finn be reunited, or is it already too late?

"A moving, thorough, and entrancing novel about how two orphaned young Berlin women become each other's family during and after the Holocaust." Simone Yehuda, contributing author of The Ones Who Remember: Second-Generation Voices of the HolocaustIn the heart-wrenching tapestry of The Sister Knot, an enthralling tale unfolds, weaving the resilient bond of a female friendship against the backdrop of history. Set amidst the shadows of World War Two, Liane and Frima, survivors of Holocaust trauma, find solace and strength in each other. Together, through cunning, theft and prostitution, they navigate the unforgiving streets of Berlin and post-war existence.Brought to the United States by a Jewish refugee agency, their destinies diverge, yet the unbreakable thread of their connection persists. Frima, the adopted sister, seemingly lives the American dream-excelling in academics, a prestigious college, a successful husband, intelligent children, and a fulfilling teaching career. On the other side of fate, Liane, thrust into a group home, rejects the conventional path, embracing a life of dead-end jobs, relinquishing a daughter for adoption, and finding solace in her art even amidst the struggles that lead her to prison.Through six decades marked by drifting apart and fierce reunions, their trajectories reverse, challenging preconceived notions about destiny.The Sister Knot beckons with its poignant exploration of friendship, resilience, and the enduring strength of the ties that bind. Join Liane and Frima on their journey through the tapestry of time, where the echoes of the past resonate in the unspoken language of sisterhood.

"Exquisite short stories that give me hope." John McNally, author of The Book of Ralph: A NovelIn Universally Adored and Other One Dollar Stories, Elizabeth Bruce gives readers 33 ways of looking at a dollar. Her empathetic, humorous, and disarming embrace of plain-spoken people searching for a way out, charms and provokes. These are bittersweet stories of resilience and defiance.In "Universally Adored," a color-obsessed artist draws a facsimile of a dollar-a masterpiece universally adored-to win her girlfriend back. While checking for spare change in the laundry, in "Bald Tires" a Tennessee housewife with a malcontent husband finds an unused condom in his Sunday trousers. In "The Forgiveness Man," a runaway teen with a newborn follows a vagabond healer absolving the bedraggled godless through hugs of forgiveness. And in "Magic Fingers, a ladies' room attendant tracked down by her abusive ex finds refuge in a cheap motel with a 1970s era bed massager. Riffing on the intimate object of a dollar, Bruce's humane short fictions-from a great mashed potato war to the grass Jesus walked on-ring with the exquisite voices of characters in analog worlds.

"Unflinching acknowledgement of society's unseen. You may be uncomfortable watching, but you won't look away." David R. Roth, author of The Femme Fatale HypothesisDorian is white-knuckle sober, carving out a life for himself in Minnesota's Northwoods. He owes his reformation to the wisdom and love of Miss Bonnie, a foster mother to him and so many others, though painful memories of his tumultuous childhood and adolescence have kept him from returning to thank her. After learning of her sudden passing, he resolves to pay his respects. What he discovers back home, however, alters the course of his life forever.Upon his return, Dorian reunites with Heath, a brother bound to Dorian not by blood, but by the years they spent together under Miss Bonnie's roof. When Heath unburdens himself of a horrifying secret-that the local police covered up her murder-Dorian sets out to uncover the truth and bring the killer to justice.Laying bare the struggles foster children experience in their pursuit of identity, belonging, and love, Ashes, Ashes is a unique and essential tale.

"World-splitting. Fast, crucial, intimate, high, deep, it has the undeniable shine of a brilliant being finding her way in a world that cannot handle her shine." cin salach, author of When I Am YesWorking on Me chronicles the dysfunction and lore of a Black Russian Jewish interracial family on the far south side of Chicago, and the resulting trajectory of its prodigal child: multifaceted, multidisciplinary artist, performer, and sexual and domestic violence survivor Nikki Patin. A meditation on the biomythography genre defined by Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Joy Harjo, Working on Me lyrically dances in and out of different voices and perspectives in order to get to something like the truth. Patin's prowess as a poet and a songwriter is reflected in prose that is brutal, beautWorking on Me is about what it means to work on oneself to heal and break patterns of harm and violence and what makes the healing necessary in the first place: all the forces beyond our control that work on us.

"This is a literary gut punch. It is the great Houdini book the world has been waiting for. A perfect escape." John Kelly, Detroit Free Press Houdini's Last Handcuffs weaves a mesmerizing blend of historical fiction and fantasy in 1950s Manhattan. On the 30th anniversary of Houdini's death, three young friends, gifted a mystical Ouija Board by the enigmatic writer Walter Gibson, find themselves thrust into a world of wonder.While the adults attempt to reach Houdini in a Séance at his former residence, the children unknowingly call upon the great magician, not through the Ouija board or séance but via an enigmatic pair of handcuffs from their father's magic collection.Houdini, in dire need of their aid, reveals a hidden notebook filled with scientific formulas coveted by both benevolent and malevolent secret circles. This notebook is a puzzle, locked behind Houdini's cryptic code.The unexpected unfolds, setting off a thrilling chase, where the pursuit of Houdini's notebook holds the key to secrets, mystique, and adventure. Houdini's Last Handcuffs is a riveting journey into a world where magic meets science, tantalizing readers with every twist and turn.

"This author goes where no other might dare." Catherine Filloux, award-winning playwright What's in a smile? Or the absent smile? Saving Face is Effy Redman's thought-provoking answer.Born with a rare condition of facial paralysis called Moebius Syndrome, Redman's grit and eye for beauty help her survive childhood bullying and adolescent doldrums. Her physical transformation at age thirteen via plastic surgery eviscerates her concept of image, just in time for her and her family to immigrate from hardscrabble Manchester, England to America's disorientingly scenic upstate New York. Not until diagnosis in young adulthood with bipolar disorder does Redman come out of the closet as a lesbian, finally claiming her most inherent identity.Saving Face is a searing personal tribute to anybody who has ever felt like an outsider. This memoir honors the grace of a face that stands out in a crowd, defying societal beauty norms. Disability meets transcendence, suffering becomes hope, and the individual expands into community. The inability to smile, in Redman's book, lights a window onto the human capacity for redemption.

"If his classroom lessons were distilled into commands, they would be: observe, go deeper, be empathetic. His parenting lessons: love, pay attention, be patient, and forgive... [a] moving, engaging book. I loved every page." Debra Spark, author of DisciplineJim Zervanos, a seasoned high-school English teacher and father of two, embarks on a mission at the cusp of a new school year. He realizes that today's youth are thrust into a tumultuous world and burdened with saving it. To chronicle this extraordinary period in America, he assigns himself a unique task: keeping a journal. Within its pages, we witness "his kids" grappling with pressing issues like identity politics, gun violence, and political uncertainty. A sophomore prodigy wrestles his demons onto the pages of his fiction before entering a psychiatric hospital. An estranged junior posts ominous threats on Snapchat, while a principal sabotages a student walkout. Meanwhile, in his classroom, Jim prepares a hiding space for an active shooter event and, back home, finds solace in the eulogy of his young sons' pet fish, sent on its final journey with a flush.By year's end, Jim, unwavering in his determination to inspire hope in his students, discovers that it's the youth who inspire hope in him. Their creativity and ideals paint a vivid portrait of an evolving America, seen through the kaleidoscope of Generation Z. Your Story Starts Here: A Year on the Brink with Generation Z is an intimate exploration of the challenges, resilience, and unwavering hope of today's youth in a turbulent world.

"This book brought me to tears and a greater understanding of my own possibilities." Terresa Cooper Haskew, author of Winston's Book of SoulsAn email from a stranger tells Alison Earley that her natural father, whom she has known for only six years, has died suddenly. What begins as a short trip back to Scotland for a funeral soon becomes a journey that puts adoption, sexuality, and identity on a collision course as Alison finds herself caught between the life and family she has so carefully constructed on one continent and the family from which she was taken on another.Shunned by her father's family, reunited with her natural mother, and reconnected with a long-lost love, Alison finds herself trying to shepherd her youngest child towards college while questioning everything she thought she knew about herself.When her natural mother uncovers a series of letters written to Alison from the grandmother she never knew, resurrecting the stories of generations of women-stories long buried by patriarchal rule-Alison realizes that she must find the courage to face and reveal the secrets of her own past. At what cost, though? And who and what will be left in the aftermath?When the Ocean Flies explores the pain of separation and abuse, and the power of love to heal even over huge gaps in time and geographical distance.

"A heartbreakingly beautiful debut." Sandra A. Miller, author of Wednesdays at OneIn the middle of 1974, Flora is privileged and middle-aged in a liberation-hued America, and feels both compelled by and left out of the women's movement. She finds it difficult to activate her limited supply of empathy as she contends with a clandestine and unlikely friendship, a worrisome health scare, a domineering and philandering psychiatrist husband or her own distant daughter.Flora's secret foray into psychotherapy does nothing to halt the sense that there is a better life for her somewhere else, in some parallel existence. Through the continuum of psychological diagnoses, she is lost in the murky place between contentment and discontentment, normal and abnormal.Is her state of mind a clinical, diagnosable condition, or common malaise? Perhaps she'll find out if she stops resisting to share herself with those who love her.

"Her characters are smart, funny, bold and wonderfully flawed." Joel Mowdy, author of Floyd HarborThe stories in Sara Hosey's stunning collection, Dirty Suburbia, trace the lives of girls and women struggling to live with dignity in a world that often hates them.Dirty suburbias are working-class neighborhoods in which girls who are left to fend for themselves sometimes become predators, as well as affluent communities in which women discover that money is no protection against sexism, both their own and others'.One young woman sets up her abusive, cheating boyfriend, hoping he'll get arrested so that she can rescue him and win him back. A teenager arranges to meet up with an older man she's met online playing video games; she brings a knife with her, just in case. A middle-aged divorcee attempts to rekindle a romantic relationship with her high school English teacher, who happens to be a former nun. A struggling academic falls in love with a Henry David Thoreau impersonator, and a well-adjusted grad student goes home for Christmas only to be repulsed by her family's casual cruelty.Despite the ugliness and injustice, they face, as well as the failures of their families and communities, these characters often find relief in friendship and connection, and sometimes, even discover meaning and cause for hope.

"Brave and heartbreaking... will resonate with all parents." Jen Pastiloff, author of On Being HumanAs a young suburban mother in the early 1980s, Cathy had a loving husband, a sweet toddler, and a vision of life laid out before her. Pregnant for the second time, with twins, she imagined creating the warm, affectionate home she'd craved as a child. Her family would flourish, and she would be the calm, unflappable mother at its center.But the universe had other plans.The Shape of Normal explores Cathy's intense denial and devotion as she struggles to face the challenges of raising a girl with cognitive disabilities. Convinced her diagnosis can be undone with just the right amount of single-mindedness, she turns it into a dark prophecy. But she'll have to overcome adversity and learn the lesson of acceptance before realizing her daughter was never broken.Cathy was never on a hero's journey to save her child. She needed to save herself.

"Like the best country song you have ever heard." Jane Stern, author of Ambulance GirlWith Strangers to Temptation, Things that Crash, Things that Fly, and The Hammerhead Chronicles, Scott Gould cemented his reputation as one of the most inventive, distinctive voices of Southern literature. In his latest collection, Idiot Men, he once again gathers a cast of unforgettable characters in eleven stories chock full of exceptional storylines and hilarious writing. You'll meet a trucker driver whose wife flees to Jamaica with her lover, leaving him to babysit her hairless tomcat, Princess Di; a male nurse who discovers a trailer full of counterfeit NASCAR paraphernalia during a home health visit; an amateur arsonist sentenced to a year in a Smokey the Bear suit; a disgruntled roofer with a bad back and a meth-dealing twin brother... these are just a few of the idiot men you'll encounter in a collection of stories that will appeal to readers who relish literature with a Southern flavor. Gould's Idiot Men provides the stage for wayward characters who make poor choices in life and love against a backdrop of elegant prose. These tales recalibrate morality and convention as readers will grow to love the characters despite-and perhaps because of-their flaws. These diverse, rich stories are ultimately connected by the spellbinding voice of a true Southern storyteller.

"You will emerge on the other side of this book laughing, crying, and braver." Lorette C. Luzajic, founder and editor of The Ekphrastic ReviewA young boy confronts a terrifying family secret. A recent college graduate is surprised by her fairy godmother in the powder room of a fancy nightclub in Manhattan. An exhausted midwife and her talking horse stumble into the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A crack real estate agent confronts monstrously annoying thrill seekers at her open house. Two scheming ex-lovers meet at a diner; only one will leave. A small child gleefully bends reality to her will.This cross-genre collection of flash explores the far realms of our most basic instinct. Russell's stories astonish, delight, and repulse, unleashing a multiverse of possibility as her unforgettable characters respond to uncertainty in bedeviling ways.

"50 ways to get to the heart of the matter." Joanne NelsonRead a story between sips of coffee, while running errands, or on your commute home. Vine Leaves Press 50-word stories are a welcome break from a busy day. The 50 Give or Take newsletter series delivers a bite-sized piece of literature straight into your inbox. This anthology contains our third year's worth of stories.

"Achingly beautiful" Robbie Jarvis, actor "Prepare to be seduced." David Scrivener, Oxfam BooksA woman's soul is laid bare between these pages, eviscerated, sunk deep between ink and page. Life in the Dressing Room of the Theatre is a meandering journey of a heart both scarred and lonely and fierce and wild as it seeks itself in each new incarnation. It is stitched and pieced together with the blades of grass and faded-yellow ribbons that string themselves through each poem, following the thread of love, through grief and trauma, suicide and rose-tinted memories while traversing the vague and uneven road to self-rediscovery.

A young boy dies during a midnight ceremony. A fish buyer and $75,000 goes missing. And a runaway becomes the object of an Alaskan wilderness search.It is 1979 in a small native village in Alaska accessible only by boat. The local Tlingits continue to honor many traditions of the past, although increased contact with the outside world is accelerating a cultural shift. Caught in a slipstream of time, the village has become a curious blend of old and new.When a young boy dies from a potion that was supposed to cure his limp, all the evidence points to the teenage shaman as the killer. It is up to Jonah St. Clair, the only police officer in the village, to solve the murder and, at the same time, find the missing fish buyer. To do so, he must use both his police skills and his knowledge of the local culture.During his investigation, Jonah becomes prey and predator in a nighttime chase through the Alaskan wilderness and barely survives a rugged boat trip in dangerous waters. In the end, he not only apprehends a killer but discovers the bittersweet secret of the Raven's Grave.

"A profound and riveting journey through shame and grief, A Hard Silence is, quite simply, unforgettable." Monica Wood, author of When We Were the KennedysIn the mid 1980s, Canada's worst public health disaster was unfolding. Catastrophic mismanagement of the country's blood supply allowed contaminated blood to be knowingly distributed nationwide, infecting close to two thousand Canadians with HIV. Among them was Melanie Brooks's surgeon father who, after receiving a blood transfusion during open-heart surgery in 1985, learned he was HIV positive.At a time when HIV/AIDS was widely misunderstood and public perception was shaped by fear, prejudice, and homophobia, victims of the disease faced ostracism and persecution. Afraid of this stigma and wanting to protect his family, Melanie's father decided his illness would be a secret. A secret they'd all have to keep. They did not know that her father would live past that first year, but he did. And for ten years before his death in 1995, from the time she was thirteen until she was twenty-three, Melanie's family lived in the shadow of AIDS. She carried the weight of the uncertain trajectory of her father's health and the heartbreaking anticipation of impending loss silently and alone. It became a way of life. A Hard Silence is an intimate glimpse into Melanie's memories of coping with the tragedy of her father's illness and enduring the loneliness and isolation of not being able to speak. With candor and vulnerability, Melanie opens her grief wounds and brings her reader inside her journey, twenty years after her father died, to finally understand the consequences of her family's silence, to interrogate the roots of stigma and discrimination responsible for the ongoing secret-keeping, and to show how she's now learned to be authentic.

"For anyone who has ever loved deeply and been willing to take risks for the sake of love." Rachel Barenbaum author of Atomic AnnaWhen American-born Jennifer falls in love with French-born Philippe during the First Intifada in Israel, she understands their relationship isn't perfect.Both 23, both Jewish, they lead very different lives: she's a secular tourist, he's an observant immigrant. Despite their opposing outlooks on two fundamental issues-country and religion-they are determined to make it work. For the next 20 years, they root and uproot their growing family, each longing for a singular place to call home.In Places We Left Behind, Jennifer puts her marriage under a microscope, examining commitment and compromise, faith and family while moving between prose and poetry, playing with language and form, daring the reader to read between the lines.

We all have our rituals and talismans to protect us from the unknown, but will we admit what they are? Tarot cards, speeding cars, several saints, and old dogs make appearances in Joanne Nelson's new collection of prose and poetry. She unravels the secular deities giving shape to her days, not only on planes, but in summer crowds, at conferences, and in long post office queues. Whether it's a bandaid in a pocket, the backup pen in a purse, or a hidden $20 in a wallet for just-in-case, Nelson explores what we carry for comfort. She delves into the Mercury retrograde conundrum and examines the significance of kitchens as holy places. Beer runs through it. There will be coffee. Join Nelson, author of the memoir, This Is How We Leave, in this humorous and heartfelt journey through life's often-ignored quiet moments. Ignored until, plate of cookies in hand, they come begging for a chat. All the while, the kids move out, the house gets put up for sale, and loved ones age.

Something very creepy is going on inside the Eco Trooper Club's gloomy warehouse.Quinn Bard has been forced to join a club at her high school in the new town she hates. Her first meeting leaves her questioning her sanity.Despite her family's joyfully chaotic home life, things get worse. Quinn is shocked to discover a sinister conspiracy at the heart of the club's mission, and there's something very bizarre about the group's adult leader, Nadine Stent.Enlisting the help of her older sister Arista, Quinn learns that the club's student members are unhappy hostages. What mysterious power does Stent hold over them? And what kind of twisted scheme has she dragged everyone into?In a race against time, the two sisters and new friends work to expose Stent's evil plot. And together they have adventures funnier, stranger and more thrilling than Quinn ever imagined possible.If Quinn and her allies succeed, it'll be a new beginning for her. If they fail, innocent people will go to jail, and families will be destroyed. Including Quinn's.

Martha Engber lives a charmed life in the suburbs with a husband and two kids where everything is fine, fine, fine until suddenly she's... completely broken. She's so used to lying to others and herself that she has no idea who she really is or how she feels about anything. What happened? Why is her life smooth driving one minute and totaled the next?In this sometimes funny, often devastating memoir, Martha describes the arduous journey toward discovering the invisible roadblock that ran her life off course: her psychological distress is the result of being the neurotypical daughter of a dad with undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder, a condition that affects over 75 million people worldwide.Martha uses personal anecdotes and research about the emergence of ASD as a diagnosis to explain the psychological, emotional and social challenges she faced as a child, then as an adult and parent. Along the way, she shows the sometimes harrowing, but eminently rewarding, route others can follow to chase down the source of their family angst and so reach a more blissful future.

"Tough rat-a-tat-tat prose speeds the reader through a wild search for missing millions." Jonathan Santlofer, author of The Last Mona LisaWhat happens when millions in cold cash evaporates into thin air? And the only people aware of its disappearance are a collection of misfits, bunglers and crooked CIA agents? The one person on earth who knows exactly where that cash is located is a legless, ex-Navy SEAL, confined to a wheelchair.It's an icy Christmas Day in Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. Sam Christie has come to South Philly to visit the grave of a former Secret Service Agent, Pete Macaluso. Drive into town, place some flowers on Pete's grave, and head home - piece of cake...Not so fast; unbeknownst to Sam, he's walking straight into a sinister trap; a trap that will take him to the exact spot where the Americas meet, and pit him against ruthless mercenaries, an unrelenting cop, and rogue CIA agents."It's Panama, Sam... There are no rules."

"Intelligent and laden with surprises... Marvelous." Lorrie Moore, author of I Am Homeless If This Is Not My HomeWill Sorley, a native Californian, is barely surviving his days teaching college in rural Pennsylvania when he receives an email from a teenage girl in Kenya claiming to be his long-lost daughter.This explosive note leads to a trip halfway around the globe to find this young woman and uncover more about her enigmatic mother, while trying to stay connected to his new girlfriend.Swerving from the comic to the tragic, For You I Would Make an Exception follows Will from Pennsylvania to Kenya, San Francisco to India as his life expands in ways he never imagined.

A successful radiologist and elite athlete, Dr. Dave tended to the blistered feet of strangers on racecourses and gave away many of his trophies. He was appreciated for his generosity and camaraderie with family, friends, colleagues, and adventure-racing teammates, the latter of whom usually accompanied him on excursions. But he embarked on his final pursuit alone-an attempt to summit all fifty-four of the fourteeners in Colorado-and made an unknowable error that caused him to fall two hundred feet to his death. When people learned that he had died, they often asked his sister, the only girl and the baby of the family, "Were you close?" The question, seemingly straightforward, haunted her and begged for a deeper answer, requiring an exploration that took a decade. She invites the reader along on her own journey as she searches for a greater understanding about who her brother was, why his passions were worth risking everything, and how to carry on in the world and in her family without him, ultimately becoming even closer to him in death than in life. Were You Close? challenges the cultural notion that the bereaved can or should simply "get over" their losses, illustrating that integrating these experiences can actually help a mourner not just heal, but move forward with clarified purpose.

Tristan Wishnasky seems to have it all: a successful career as a cynical novelist in love with the Void, a romantic relationship with a formidable woman, and admission to the parties and revelries of the glitterati. But just when he's confident nothing can stop his stupendous rise, he begins to hallucinate mysterious messages telling him he's wasting his life. When the messages don't stop, he turns to his atheist lover, his oracular psychotherapist, and an ingenious female rabbi for guidance and direction. Where has he gone wrong? How should he be living?In his search for self-knowledge, Tristan lurches from the art galleries of the famous to the homeless shelters of the abandoned; from the arms of college dean Vanessa to the bed of struggling actress Barbara; from a career that ignores every claim beyond ego to the company of people trying to rescue the imperiled Earth.As he learns to destroy every false image that's ever laid claim to him, he begins to think possible a life that deeply, truly matters.