These ten short stories explore loss and sacrifice in American suburbia. In idyllic suburbs across the country, from Philadelphia to San Francisco, narrators struggle to find meaning or value in their lives because of (or in spite of) something that has happened in their pasts. In "Hole," a young man reconstructs the memory of his childhood friend's deadly fall. In "The Theory of Light and Matter," a woman second-guesses her choice between a soul mate and a comfortable one.
Memories erode as Porter's characters struggle to determine what has happened to their loved ones and whether they are responsible. Children and teenagers carry heavy burdens in these stories: in "River Dog" the narrator cannot fully remember a drunken party where he suspects his older brother assaulted a classmate; in "Azul" a childless couple, craving the affection of an exchange student, fails to set the boundaries that would keep him safe; and in "Departure" a suburban teenage boy fascinated with the Amish makes a futile attempt to date a girl he can never be close to.
Memory often replaces absence in these stories as characters reconstruct the events of their pasts in an attempt to understand what they have chosen to keep. These struggles lead to an array of secretive and escapist behavior as the characters, united by middle-class social pressures, try to maintain a sense of order in their lives. Drawing on the tradition of John Cheever, these stories recall and revisit the landscape of American suburbia through the lens of a new generation.
"[L]ike taking a sip of the clearest mountain spring water: quenching, even though you've had water before . . . With clear, strong prose marked by devious underpinnings, Porter's style is straightforward, his characters careful narrators treading above a murky pool."
Booklist
"The stories in Karin Lin-Greenberg's debut collection are gems. Her characters walk the narrow line between comedy and tragedy, a lean territory that Lin Greenberg navigates with skill and grace. I loved her curmudgeonly grandfathers, her young parents and college students and recovering alcoholics, her feuding septuagenarian housemates and fading talk show hosts. The range in this book is deep a
Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review
"Porter's fiction is thoughtful, lucid, and highly controlled. It is especially striking for the strong consistency of vision that is achieved in every story. He has the kind of voice one can accept as universal-honest and grave, with transparency as its adornment."
Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Gilead
