* By the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2013 and the EFG/Sunday Times Best Short Story Award 2014

* 'An idiosyncratic and compelling voice' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

An ATF raid, a moonshot gone wrong, a busload of female cancer victims determined to live life to the fullest - these are some of the compelling themes explored in this funny, sad, brilliantly bizarre debut collection. A lovesick teenage Cajun girl, a gay astrophysicist, a teenage sniper on Los Angeles police payroll, a post apocalyptic bulletproof-vest salesman - each seeks connection and meaning in landscapes made uncertain by the voids parents and lovers should fill.

Adam Johnson's stories capture youth's torque, its weird braid of exhilaration and loneliness. Except there's nothing humdrum here. Each of Johnson's fantasies, each peculiar landscape, glows hot with imagination * Esquire *
Masterful ... beautifully crafted ... achingly poignant ... cleverly funny * San Francisco Chronicle *
Johnson's audacious work blows the covers off the short story and leaves the genre newly invigorated * Chicago Tribune *

ADAM JOHNSON won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013 for his second novel, the New York Times bestseller The Orphan Master’s Son (‘Excavates the very meaning of life’ New York Times). His short story 'Nirvana' won the prestigious Sunday Times/EFG Short Story Award. He is the author of acclaimed story collections, Fortune Smiles and Emporium and the novel Parasites Like Us. He teaches creative writing at Stanford University and lives with his family in San Francisco.