We Live in Water

ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMAS FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2019From theNew York Timesbestselling author ofBeautiful Ruins, the first collection of short fiction from Jess Waltera suite of diverse and searching stories about personal struggle and diminished dreams, all of them marked by the wry wit, keen eye, and generosity of spirit that has made him a bookseller and reader favoriteThese twelve storiespublished over the last five years in Harpers, The Best American Short Stories, McSweeneys, Playboy, and other publicationsveer 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.We Live in Wateris a darkly comic, heartfelt collection of stories from a ridiculously talented writer (New York Times), one of the freshest voices in American literature (Dallas Morning News).