“A work of daunting versatility and technical skill, the product of a writer absolutely at home in the language and working vigorously within both new and old forms.” —Michael Byers, author of Long for this World and The Coast of Good Intentions   From Pushcart Prize-winner Valerie Laken, author of Dream House , comes a riveting short story collection charting the divisions and collisions between cultures and nations, families and lovers, selves and others in the United States and Russia. In the tradition of Lydia Peelle, Barbara Johnson, and David Mitchell, Laken creates incisive and illuminating portraits of characters coping with loss, estrangement, and disability, confined by their circumstances to separate kingdoms of the heart. In eight short stories, Laken (Dream House, 2009) examines what divides us, from solitude to anger, fear, and silence. All her characters are misfits or damaged, cut off in one way or another from their fellow humans. There�s a blind Russian boy, unable to communicate his desire for independence; a recent amputee, who�s taken to �experimenting with reticence� as she withdraws from her devoted husband; a gay couple adopting a Russian baby, who can�t agree on a particular child; a man who�s lost his thumbs, the very thing that identifies him as a man, not an animal. �We are not fine,� his son says, which serves as the theme of these finely crafted, fully realized tales. Laken demonstrates that all of us are in some way isolated from others, trapped in our own thoughts, our own hurts, our own bodies. In setting her stories alternately in Russia and the U.S., Laken shows that borders and oceans create less of a gulf than does the tiny space between two people. Bridging that chasm is our greatest challenge. --Patty Wetli “This is a pitch-perfect collection, searching and graceful, containing just the right mixture of intelligence and heart. The separate kingdoms Valerie Laken writes about are not only America and Russia, the countries where her stories take place, but also the innermost minds of any two human beings, and the different ways we experience the world before and after a catastrophe. All of the characters in this book are missing something deeply important to them―children or pets, spells of time or pieces of their own bodies. In Laken’s skillful and compassionate hands, though, they are never less than whole.” - Kevin Brockmeier, author of Things That Fall From the Sky and The Brief History of the Dead “What I find so striking about this book is the way that separate worlds―seemingly foreign or even bizarre to each other―are brought together and forced to converse, to try to love each other. There is considerable erotic energy in such a meeting. The imagination in these stories often does what it can to heal a wound or a rift, and so the stories often have an amazing poignancy that never lapses into the maudlin.” - Charles Baxter, author of the National Book Award finalist The Feast of Love “A work of daunting versatility and technical skill, the product of a writer absolutely at home in the language and working vigorously within both new and old forms. . . . This is a writer of wonderful gifts.” - Michael Byers, author of Long for this World and The Coast of Good Intentions “The perfect haunted house story for these unnerving times. . . . Having assembled the plot machinery for a sturdy thriller, Laken does none of the expected things. Instead, she uses the framework to support an ambitious study of people in search of a home―“home’’ being a metaphor for the elusive something that defines and validates the self.” - New York Times “Laken is masterful at character construction as she explores issues of race and class and conveys the wreckage of individual lives and the emotions evoked by a house that is the source of joy and dreams as well as the site of tragedy.” - Booklist (starred review) “A psychologically engrossing novel about the homes we make―in our houses, in our neighborhoods, and in the hearts of our loved ones. Laken takes on that great unspoken American subject―class―and does so with frankness, acuity and surpassing feeling. DREAM HOUSE is a memorable debut novel from a fully mature talent.” - Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl “Loss, temporary and permanent, physical and emotional, is the hard, gleaming thread tying together Laken’s short-story collection. . . . An absorbing literary exploration of the geography of loss.” - Kirkus Reviews “Laken demonstrates that all of us are in some way isolated from others, trapped in our own thoughts, our own hurts, our own bodies. In setting her stories alternately in Russia and the U.S., Laken shows that borders and oceans create less of a gulf than does the tiny space between two people. Bridging that chasm is our greatest challenge.” - Booklist “Vivid and evocative, these stories will appeal to readers of both popular and literary fiction.” - Library Journal “[Laken] can turn out finely