We Live in Water

WE LIVE IN WATER is a darkly comic, heartfelt collection of stories from a "ridiculously talented writer" (NEW YORK TIMES). These twelve stories-published over the last five years in HARPER'S, MCSWEENEY'S, PLAYBOY and other publications-veer from comic tales of love to social satire to suspenseful crime fiction, from hip Portland to once-hip Seattle to never-hip Spokane, from a condemned casino in Las Vegas to a bottomless lake in the dark woods of Idaho. This is a world of lost fathers and redemptive conmen, of meth tweakers on desperate odysseys and men committing suicide by fishing.

In "Thief," an aluminum worker turns unlikely detective to solve the mystery of which of his kids is stealing from the family vacation fund.

In "We Live in Water," a lawyer returns to a corrupt North Idaho town to find the father who disappeared thirty years earlier.

In "Anything Helps," a homeless man has to "go to cardboard" to raise enough money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book.

In "Virgo," a local newspaper editor tries to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope.
In the near-future dystopia of "Don't Eat Cat," a Seattle man ventures into Freemont's zombie-town to look for his drug-addicted girlfriend.

In "Wheelbarrow Kings," two tweakers high on meth take on the Sisyphean task of pushing a giant television to a pawn shop.