In Clea Young’s arresting sophomore collection of stories, friendships fail, families stumble, and neighbours know each other’s business

Distinctly rooted in the Pacific Northwest, Young’s characters make their marks and take their missteps on the beaches, in the mountains and neighbourhoods in and around Vancouver, BC. A couple spontaneously invite their new neighbours to dinner and the night takes a menacing turn. A widow seeks solace and revenge on the mountain bike trails behind her home. And an overwhelmed single mother moves into a housing cooperative the same summer two teenage boys are on the run, wanted for murder.

The women in these stories crave connection but often get in their own way of achieving it. They are stubborn, jealous, and stuck. They are misunderstood—and misunderstand—and lonely. They are also perceptive and empathetic. In prose that sparks and spits, by turns poetic and plain, Young writes assuredly of loneliness and connection, love and loss, fear and fortitude, and perhaps most evocatively of the labyrinthine inner lives of women.