What If We Were Somewhere Else

by Wendy J. Fox

Overview

What If We Were Somewhere Else is the question everyone asks in these linked stories as they try to figure out how to move on from job losses, broken relationships, and fractured families. Following the employees of a nameless corporation and their loved ones, these stories examine the connections they forge and the choices they make as they try to make their lives mean something in the soulless, unforgiving hollowness of corporate life. Looking hard at the families to which we are born and the families we make, What If We Were Somewhere Else asks its own questions about what it means to work, love, and age against the uncertain backdrop of modern America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951631062
Publisher:	Santa Fe Writer's Project
Publication date:	11/01/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	722 KB

About the Author

Wendy J. Fox is the author of The Seven Stages of Anger and Other Stories, and the novels The Pull of It and If The Ice Had Held. She received her MFA from Eastern Washington University, and her work has been published or is forthcoming in many literary reviews, websites, and blogs. Find her at wendyjfox.com and on Twitter @WendyJeanFox

Editorial Reviews

09/13/2021

Fox’s diverting latest (following If the Ice Had Held) imagines the lives of the people working at an unnamed business in Denver, Colo. The office environment is dismal, routine, and tainted by a malfunctioning air conditioner, and each narrative manages to be both enthralling and discomfiting. In “Pivot, Table,” Kate, the office supervisor, becomes increasingly unpleasant at work as her marriage deteriorates. In “Pivot, Feather,” Melissa, the aloof recent hire, listens to nature sounds on headphones in an effort to recreate the ambience of her hippie, vaccine-free childhood spent in her family’s commune. In “The Old Country,” copywriter Laird regrets falling out of touch with a childhood friend. Christian, the chronic adulterer from IT, fails to learn much from either his personal or professional failings in “Not Me.” Michael, in “The Crow,” who is hired by and eventually fired by his stepfather, lusts after his office mate, Sabine, who in turn is reluctant to leave her loser artist boyfriend. Heather, the office financial analyst, breaks her foot walking home from work in “The Empathy Chart” and uses the resulting sick days to kindle an affair. For the most part, the stories are content to examine the quotidian, though the collection takes a bizarre turn toward the end, positing a dystopian, climate-destroyed future that includes moon colonists and regimented protein powder. Fox successfully delivers small dramas that can pack a powerful punch. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Each story in this addictive collection casts a spell...What If We Were Somewhere Else is Friday night, stay in alone, tell your friends you have other plans, kind of reading." —Dave Patterson, author of Soon The Light Will Be Perfect

"Fox’s memorable narrations, ranging from eccentric to evocative, side-splitting to shocking, had me smiling, pondering, and turning the pages for more." —Cynthia Swanson, New York Times bestselling author of The Bookseller and The Glass Forest

"I loved this book so much. Fox uses all of these somewhat bleak stories to tap perfectly into what it means to be human. It's the exact type of book that makes me love to read. It's exactly what I want when a book says 'stories.'" —Meagan Graham, bibliotaphsblog

"...diverting...enthralling... Fox successfully delivers small dramas that can pack a powerful punch." —Publishers Weekly

"Fox delivers a realistic, emotionally driven set of interlinked stories… Relatable, affecting, and at times absurd, this collection is for anyone who has felt frustrated at work. It shows us that there is more to life than what we do for a living." —Booklist

"[A] moving and perceptive collection of linked stories... emotionally resonant and memorable." —Small Press Picks

"Fox has a smooth-flowing prose style that helps keep you connected to her characters. She gives each of the characters we follow their own voice in addition to their own story while honoring each with her amazing writing style." —Dominic Loise, Friction

"Fox’s prose is laced with tenderness, exploring lives measured in acceptance, kindness and connection. Even while moving insightfully through the more alienating facets of office culture — networking parties, breakroom concerns — Fox invests most of all in what makes us people over workers." —New York Times

From the Publisher