A stunning collection of stories exploring love and art, luck and loss, from “one of our greatest living short story writers” (Esquire), the author of How to Behave in a Crowd and The Material

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE SUMMER AND ONE OF THE NEW YORKER AND ESQUIRE’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)

“Camille Bordas is an expert chronicler of misfits. . . . [These stories] range widely in tone and subject matter, but they are united by the profound empathy and warmth with which Bordas evokes her characters.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

A young woman takes stock after the burglary of her apartment. A teenager becomes obsessed with the obituaries in a weekly magazine. Grandchildren mourn the grandparents who loved them and the grandparents who didn’t. Painters and almost-painters try to distinguish Good Art from Bad Art. People grapple with life-altering illness, unrequited love, and promises they have every intention of keeping. Some win the lottery. Others don’t.

In these sinewy, thoughtful stories, celebrated New Yorker contributor Camille Bordas delves into the mysteries of life, death, and all that happens in between. At once darkly funny and poignantly self-aware, Bordas’s writing offers a window into our shared, flawed humanity without insisting on a perfect understanding of our experiences.

With her first collection, which gathers previously unpublished stories alongside work originally featured in The New Yorker and The Paris Review, Bordas cements her reputation as a master of the form.