A Place in the World: Stories (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780822948766)

Winner of the 2025 Drue Heinz Literature Prize

The eleven stories in A Place on the World are character-driven portrayals depicting various lives transformed by random events or twists of fate. A hopeless gay hustler, in for the long con, instead finds himself falling in love while vacationing in Denmark; a young woman living on the coast of Maine confronts her painful past when her little brother comes to visit after being released from rehab; a failed New York City actor afraid of commitment goes on a comic rant and embraces an epiphany while cat-sitting for a friend. In separate, first-person narratives, a struggling husband and wife take turns describing the impact of a scandalous crisis on their marriage; a settled suburban dad arrives at a beach house for the weekend, only to realize he robbed one of the other houseguests thirty-four years earlier. In this poignant, engaging collection, Gaythwaite offers compassion and surprising optimism while celebrating astonishing resilience in the face of life's persistent challenges.

Author: Bill Gaythwaite
ISBN-10: 0822948761
ISBN-13: 9780822948766
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Language: English
Published: 10/07/2025
Pages: 200
Format: Hardcover