This collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national crises. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art collapse under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in "Bronze," a sexually confused college freshman whose encounter with a stranger on a train leads to a revelation about his past and his future.

When Sophie Mouse's brother, Winston, gets sick, she starts to envy all the attention he is getting, but when she gets sick herself, she regrets ever wishing this on herself.

Ball wishes he could fly like Balloon, but when a boy arrives and sends Ball rolling, bouncing, and even soaring into the air, Balloon feels deflated.

"A sharp, biting, and irresistible debut about parties and ambition in New York City--introducing a talented Mr. Ripley for the digital age, with all the glitz and grit of Bright Lights, Big City. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Louise Wilson is an expert at just barely making it. She's mastered the tricks and shortcuts that a penniless small-town girl needs to survive in New York City. When she meets the beautiful, wealthy, eccentric,...

"A Vera Sigall y Horacio Infante los une un amor de juventud y su pasión por la literatura. También un lazo misterioso que dos jóvenes, Emilia y Daniel, intentan desentrañar. Sin embargo, este no es el único enigma en sus vidas. Una mañana, Vera Sigall cae por las escaleras de su casa y queda en coma. Al principio, la noción de que su caída no fue un accidente aparece como una sospecha para Daniel. Pero con los días y las semanas, la duda...