Welcome Back to the World: A Novella & Stories

by Rob Davidson

Overview

Mark cares for his ailing ex-wife in his home and comes to terms with his unresolved anger and hurt; American expatriates Will and Margaret become close but platonic friends, united in their loneliness and love for Taiwan and its complexities. Heartbroken over his parents' divorce, Jon longs for a reconciliation that his father insists will never happen. Grant, smitten with Melinda, learns valuable lessons about race, tolerance, and accepting change. And the title novella, a tale of identity, faith, and betrayal, documents the long, slow process of recovery from trauma and the promise of renewal. In stories of finding life anew in ever-changing circumstances, Rob Davidson's soaring prose reminds us that hope is visible in the darkest of times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781960329486
Publisher:	Cornerstone Press
Publication date:	11/12/2024
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Rob Davidson is the author of four previous fiction collections: What Some Would Call Lies (2018), Spectators (2017), The Farther Shore (2012), and Field Observations (2001). His work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Hayden's Ferry Review, Indiana Review, The Normal School, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing and American literature at California State University, Chico.

Editorial Reviews

2025-03-27
Men and women struggle to find the good in the bad in Davidson’s fiction collection.

Life can get serious fast. In the first story in Davidson’s newest collection, a man grapples with his ex-wife’s early-onset Alzheimer’s. His daughter wants him to let the woman move in with him, something he is loath to do—but when his ex-wife is found beaten and possibly raped in a city park, the stakes become significantly higher. In another story, a college campus budget analyst gets into an argument with a foreign photographer taking pictures of him on campus. The man turns out to be a visiting artist, and he wants to make the analyst the subject of his next project. The photographer compares himself to Kafka: “He was the poet of the bureaucracy. What he did in his fiction, I try to do with my lens. That is why I came to America.” A third tale follows a boy on a fishing trip with his father attempting to reciprocate the patriarch’s gruff efforts at bonding, stymied by a roiling resentment he feels about his parents’ recent divorce. Across six stories and one novella, Davidson follows characters learning to live in a world not as they want it to be, but as it is. Nowhere is this tension as apparent as in the title novella, in which a Buddhist monk quits his monastery after seven years and moves in with his surf bum brother. “You’re stepping back into the material world—lust, lies, and corruption!” the brother encourages him. “Only one way to do it. Jump in with both feet!” As the former monk grapples with the crises that led him into—and then away from—the monastery, he gleans an entirely different sort of wisdom from his far-from-enlightened brother. Davidson’s prose is by turns clever and soulful, capturing his characters at their most curmudgeonly before dragging them, often against their will, toward greater vulnerability. Though the novella is the strongest entry, there’s not a bad one here.

An impressive set of stories from a skilled observer of the human animal.

Kirkus Reviews