A Place in the World: Stories

by Bill Gaythwaite

Overview

Winner of the 2025 Drue Heinz Literature Prize

The eleven stories in A Place in the World are character-driven portrayals depicting various lives transformed by random events or twists of fate. 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 hopeless gay hustler, in for the long con, instead finds himself falling in love while vacationing in Denmark; 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822948766
Publisher:	University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date:	10/07/2025
Series:	Drue Heinz Literature Prize , #45
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Bill Gaythwaite is the 45th Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner. His short fiction has appeared in Subtropics, Chicago Quarterly Review, Willow Springs, South Carolina Review, Puerto del Sol, and many other publications. Gaythwaite's debut novel, Underburn, was published by Delphinium Books in 2023. Three of his stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Bill is currently Assistant Director for Special Populations at Columbia Law School. He lives in New Jersey with his partner.

Read an Excerpt

EXCERPT FROM A Place in the World by Bill Gaythwaite
CHAPTER: IF YOU ONLY KNEW, Pgs.37-39

Before my father runs off, he suddenly showers us all with attention. It’s jarring at first, like having someone crowd next to you on a bus when there are plenty of seats in back. There’s something desperate about it, but I’m not thinking this at the time. I’m just thrilled to be part of his world, because up until then, he has been a shadowy figure, a supporting player in our lives. He’s a busy executive, a senior vice president at a famous insurance company in Boston, coming home late most nights from work after my brother and I are in bed. I wait up for him, for his late-night, one-minute check-ins, first to Wylie’s room across the hall and then to mine. He stands at the foot of my bed as he loosens his tie, squeezes my big toe.

“You awake, Sport?” he says.

I always make sure to keep my toes peeking out from under the covers so he can grab one, but because of pride or stubbornness I never say a word before he walks away.

He goes to the office most weekends as well, and when he doesn’t, he leaves the house at dawn to play golf, which he tells us is work-related too. For business contacts. He calls golf a necessary evil, as if he’s talking about a flu shot in the ass.

It is 1975.

He calls my mother every afternoon, usually to say he’ll be taking the last train out of the city to our little suburb.

“Why does he do that?” I ask her once, after she puts the phone back on its hook. We are standing in the kitchen, the afternoon sun coursing through the windows, spilling over the Formica countertops. “Like he’s telling you something you don’t already know.”

I have just turned thirteen and am getting a mouth on me.

“He likes to keep me informed,” Ma says.

There might be an edge to her voice when my mother tells me this, or I might be remembering it that way, adding it in after the fact, like a sound effects engineer.

“Anyway,” I tell her, “you should suggest he save his calls for some really big news, like when he’s planning to make it home in time for a meal with his family.”

“Now, Kevin,” she sighs, “don’t be so dramatic.”

I already have a reputation.

“Ma!” I shout. “He’s never here! Wiley pointed to the weatherman on Channel Four the other day and asked if he was our father!”

My little brother, of course, has never said such a thing; because he’s ten years old and knows better, but I still see the impact of my wise-ass words flash across Ma’s face like brush fire. Soon after this, it is summer, and they are remodeling my dad’s offices and he is suddenly home full time, and this is when the attention starts. He lavishes himself on us. When it happens, I am willing to forgive everything that has come before. I am powerless against it anyway. It’s like a natural disaster. He’s my dad.

He takes Wiley and me to Fenway three times during those weeks to watch the Red Sox play. We win every time. At least my memory has it that way. My dad gets chummy with the guys selling concessions at the park, introduces himself to everybody sitting in our section, and makes up nicknames for total strangers. He slaps people on the back too, as if he’s running for political office, but like with real candidates, this routine seems to divide the crowd. He makes an impression, all right, but I notice a few folks turn away and shrink back as if from an exposed power line. My brother is crazy out of his mind for Fred Lynn that summer, the rookie center fielder for the Sox who is having a phenomenal season. Every time the big guy comes up to the plate or lopes out to his position, Wiley stands up, waves his arms like a castaway, and yells “Frreedddie” in his shrill little voice. I am at the age when I get embarrassed by anything that causes strangers to look in my direction. I smack Wiley with my baseball glove and tell him to shut up. We always bring our gloves to snag foul balls, but they never come anywhere near us.

“Ease up on your brother, Sport,” Dad says, and softly cuffs my ear.

Editorial Reviews

In the tradition of Chekhov, Bill Gaythwaite writes stories about outwardly unremarkable people with remarkable inner lives. Funny, smart, intermittently heartbreaking, the stories in A Place in the World eschew literary pyrotechnics and privilege the art of storytelling. A fine collection.

David Leavitt

These are captivating stories that reveal how intertwined we really are with our past selves. A fantastic collection about facing up to the ghosts of our mistakes and our fears, and how our secrets refuse to let us forget who we were and what we’ve done.

Manuel Muñoz

Bill Gaythwaite’s revelatory collection makes me fall in love with reading again. So immersive are these sharp, quick-witted, and intricately observed stories that, in fact, they make me forget I was reading at all. Amaster at conveying emotions, Gaythwaite is particularly gifted at evoking the ones which are usually lower pitched — nostalgia, regret, and longing — making them as loud, palpable, and dramatic as the more chest-thumping emotions of rage and anger. Maybe that’s because these stories aren’t so much about loss or the past but the necessity to face them in order to move on. Not that it’s easy. Often, these characters come from small towns and small lives best left behind and forgotten, and as they bet on themselves and seek bigger lives in other places, they sometimes find that they must make choices that betray themselves and others for reasons that are heartbreakingly human. A moving, incisive collection of big-hearted stories that reverberate well past their reading.

Caroline Kim