Drastic: Stories

In this sparkling, daring new work, Maud Casey explores how we survive modem crises of loss and love through the lives of women and men who are emotional and geographic nomads. Each flirts with madness and self-destruction while compulsively, gently, or haphazardly reaching toward life. These simple gestures of optimism and vitality, each gorgeously rendered, make Drastic a captivating read.

Meet the reckless college graduate working in a whole body donation clinic; a young woman obsessed with Benedictine monks; a middle-aged woman who becomes a stand-in talk-show guest to process her own grief; unlikely friends who meet in a domestic violence shelter; a young girl and the father who stole her away to escape his wife's disturbing mental illness. Absorbing and wide-ranging, Drastic is an unforgettable collection sure to be compared with the best of Ann Beattie, Lorrie Moore, and Mary Gaitskill.