Erika Krouse

From the coldest town on earth to a sex shop in Bangkok to a haunted bed-and-breakfast in the Rockies, we meet characters at hinge moments. A runaway fights for her future while driving an ice-cream truck in gang territory; a cleaning woman investigates the teenager who died in her stead; a terminal patient in Alaska discovers new life in helping others die. This collection explores the borderlands between humor and hurt, community and self, and hope and despair, redefining what it means to survive.
Scalpel-sharp, unsparingly funny, and achingly wise, Krouse's expansive stories build to unforgettable emotional catharses, as these men and women must decide how far they are willing to go to save one another--and themselves.

Save Me, Stranger

Cassandra Tang

They want to see how the piano performs under stress and strain, if it can handle complexity, if it's capable of sustaining the weight of its relationship with them over the years.

I want a piano that recaptures wasted time.

But we have changed. Now ramen is a humble meal, made with compassion. It is food to alleviate pain. It is our shame and despair, transformed into nourishment. 

Tokyo is a city of concentric circles, with millions of exhausted people crowded inside each rigid layer like atoms, bumping against each other and quickly away. At the center of all the rings is loneliness - dirty socks in a laundry basket, a bed you roll up each morning, shoes placed in the entryway facing outward, for leaving.

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