Nowadays and Lonelier in Bloomington, MN

For fans of Heather O’Neill’s
Daydreams of Angels
, Otessa Moshfegh’s
Homesick for Another World
, and Carmen Maria Machado’s
Her Body and Other Parties
,
Nowadays and Lonelier
features a cascade of characters seeking connection in the darkest alleyways and meaning in the mundane. In these pages, a ballet dancer navigates complex family ties that are frayed by addiction; a young girl discovers sex and sexuality in the nineties in an impoverished urban center; a lover sojourns in Egypt and exacts an unexpected revenge; and a barista and a painter weather an apartment fire in Montreal. The collection is concerned with the contrast experienced by working- and middle-class millennials, between access to education and art compared to a relative lack of access to secure jobs and housing—and how these conditions leave many straddling a world where mental health, addictions, and sex work are daily realities as they try to carve out space for themselves in times that are increasingly alienating.
, Carmella Gray-Cosgrove’s debut story collection, features vivid portraits of unsure yet hopeful people struggling to find a good life in a hard world.