From the award-winning author of Music Through the Floor and Model Home, a riveting and profoundly moving story collection by a writer âuncannily in tune with the heartbreak and absurdity of domestic lifeâ (Los Angeles Times).
A boy on the edge of adolescence fears his mother might be a robot; a psychotically depressed woman is entrusted with taking her niece and nephew trick-or-treating; a reluctant dad brings his baby to a debaucherous party; a teenage boy tries to prevent his mother from putting his estranged fatherâs dogs to sleep. Ranging from a youth arts camp to an aging punk bandâs reunion tour, from a dystopian future where parents no longer exist to a ferociously independent bookstore, Last Day on Earth revolves around the endlessly complex, frequently surreal system that is family.
Eric Puchner, hailed as âtechnically gifted and emotionally insightfulâ (The New York Times Book Review), and someone who âputs the story back in short storyâ (San Francisco Chronicle), delivers a gloriously original, utterly memorable collection that evokes both the comedy and tragedy of our lifelong endeavor to come of age.