The Owl That Carries Us Away

These twenty-nine stories explore coming of age largely in the contemporary Midwest, but they echo such primal struggles as mortality, the hunt, growing up with parents who face desperation, and just-out-of-reach dreams for the future.

A young boy finds a possum skull and brings it home as compensation for a family tragedy; a newly-married woman imagines that mushrooms are growing from her husband’s body; and a woman who absconds with her sister’s baby envisions a life for them in Florida. R...