When a young girl in a contemporary northwestern American town dies, one of her neighbors and former friends rethinks her relationship with death.

A young boy navigates friendship with another boy in his suburban San Diego neighborhood. The neighbor boy’s homelife is both enthralling and frightening.

As a teenage girl stumbles upon a mysterious portal leading her to a utopian, magical world, her storyline converges with that of the author—a middle-aged, married mother of two who has come out as asexual to her husband—leading both to a reckoning with their unfulfilling romantic relationships and deepest desires.

After a drunk college boy falls off a balcony, a slew of characters--a groundskeeper, another student, a chaplain, and an RA--relate to his death in different ways. Their stories are sidelined for the core matter: that a boy died.

When an ambiguous small US town must welcome recently-landed aliens into the mix, the townspeople experience a range of emotions: sexual attraction, curiosity, disgust, sympathy, ambivalence.