Inhale: A Novel in Stories

Inhale is a novel in stories that accumulate until they begin to answer one another: a prologue pulled from static; sutures counted down to the last in triage; permits that rename the living. Here, paperwork decides who moves and who disappears, and those who forge it are not criminals so much as locksmiths: They make the dead mobile so the living can cross.

From Gaza’s checkpoints to basements that sweat salt, seawater pools behind the teeth—carried without swallowing, held without speakin...