What If We Were Somewhere Else - Wendy J. Fox
Product Details:
Paperback : 192 pages
ISBN: 9781951631055
About the Book:
What If We Were Somewhere Else is the question everyone asks in these linked stories as they try to figure out how to move on from job losses, broken relationships, and fractured families. Following the employees of a nameless corporation and their loved ones, these stories examine the connections they forge and the choices they make as they try to make their lives mean something in the soulless, unforgiving hollowness of corporate life. Looking hard at the families to which we are born and the families we make, What If We Were Somewhere Else asks its own questions about what it means to work, love, and age against the uncertain backdrop of modern America.
About the Author:
Wendy J. Fox is the author of four books of fiction. Her novel If the Ice Had Held was named a top book by Buzzfeed, High Country News, and LitHub (audio). She has been a finalist for the Colorado Book Award twice. A frequent contributor to national publications, she has written for Self, Business Insider, Ms. Magazine, Buzzfeed News and others. She has also written for literary sites including The Millions, The Rumpus, and Electric Literature.
“Fox’s prose is laced with tenderness, exploring lives measured in acceptance, kindness and connection. Even while moving insightfully through the more alienating facets of office culture — networking parties, breakroom concerns — Fox invests most of all in what makes us people over workers.”
“Fox delivers a realistic, emotionally driven set of interlinked stories… Relatable, affecting, and at times absurd, this collection is for anyone who has felt frustrated at work. It shows us that there is more to life than what we do for a living.”
“In this connected collection of stories, Wendy J. Fox introduces us to an engaging medley of office coworkers, as well as their families, friends, and lovers. Fox’s memorable narrations, ranging from eccentric to evocative, side-splitting to shocking, had me smiling, pondering, and turning the pages for more.”
“I loved this book so much. Fox uses all of these stories to tap perfectly into what it means to be human. It’s the exact type of book that makes me love to read. It’s exactly what I want when a book says “stories”.”
“Grab a copy of WHAT IF WE WERE SOMEWHERE ELSE. Fox’s distinctive characters and their tumultuous journeys will stay with you long after you finish the book.”
“...diverting...enthralling... Fox successfully delivers small dramas that can pack a powerful punch.”
“These wry, funny short stories about a dozen coworkers at a failing office demonstrate what is so great about interconnected collections: we get the office, but we get so much more. In between tales of office romance and thermostat wars we leap backwards and forwards through time, from one character’s home birth in a mountain commune to another’s bad end in a dystopian moon colony. Along the way we get heroes and cads, liars and tragedy, as Fox interrogates what it means to be part of a community. This is the book we need right now. ”
“An inhalable balance of the whimsical and the poignant. Wendy J. Fox is a delight.”
“Each story in this addictive collection casts a spell, lifting a throbbing human life from the tired lines of a corporate spreadsheet. Fox demands we feel alive in the modern spaces where we’ve gone numb. What If We Were Somewhere Else is binge worthy. It’s Friday night, stay in alone, tell your friends you have other plans, kind of reading.”