Full Description
Lives of longing and resilience, searching and belonging in a debut story collection from a memoirist and renowned advocate for change
For a Lucky Tomorrow Buy a Flower Today. Is it true? a prospective customer asks. About the luck? "Absolutely!" Felma says. Flowers, she knows, are all that's anchored in this world, even if not for long, and like others in these luminous stories, Felma knows what it is to be rootless. In Lucky Tomorrow, Deborah Jiang-Stein presents an unforgettable cast of characters dreaming of redemption, purpose, and connection in a wounded yet beautiful world.
A young girl stuck working at her family's candy stand. A former priest trapped on a crowded train. A prisoner robbed of the book she's been writing. A father haunted by his broken family. A woman confined to a psych ward. A reverend caring for her dying housemate. And Felma, a flower vendor, searching for the daughter she gave birth to while in prison, who was swiftly bundled away. Felma's story leads us in, through, and around the others-a central beating heart for these lives on the fringes, where Jiang-Stein finds a singular, tenacious humanity.
The stories in Lucky Tomorrow move through settings drawn from the path of the author's own life: Seattle, where she grew up after being born in an Appalachian prison; Tokyo, where she once lived; the Twin Cities, where she currently resides; and the American South, where she travels for much of her advocacy work with women in prison. Pushing the boundaries of genre, Jiang-Stein delicately layers the stories of these outcasts, eccentrics, and visionaries, gathering them in from the shadows with remarkable empathy and candor, laying bare our shared sorrows and joys.
Contents
Contents
Author's Note
Everywhere at Once
Stiff Licorice
Except for the Sea
The Big Wave
Aimless, Forgetting
Devoured
No Regrets
The Bottle Duster
Fountain of Redemption
French Opera, Chocolate, and Statues
I Figure a Flower
Moment of Truth
Destined for Fame
Fingers
Esther Levin, Undefeated: Yesterday
The Chosen One
Edwin in the Ring
The Last Haircut
Esther Levin, Undefeated: Tomorrow
Bone
Welded Zipper
Bees and Honey
The List
Might Tip Over
Inventive and Meant to Be
Dreams and High Hopes Wrapped in an Old Trench Coat
Esther Levin, Undefeated: Today
Dear Baby Girl
Number Four
Always There
Edge of the Pond
Spiritual Torments
Ashes to Ashes
Afterword
