The unforgettable characters in Josh Barkan s astonishing and beautiful story collection chef, architect, nurse, high school teacher, painter, beauty queen, classical bass player, plastic surgeon, businessman, mime are simply trying to lead their lives and steer clear of violence. Yet, inevitably, crime has a way of intruding on their lives all the same. A surgeon finds himself forced into performing a risky procedure on a narco killer. A teacher struggles to protect lovestruck students whose forbidden romance has put them in mortal peril. A painter s freewheeling ways land him in the back of a kidnapper s car. Again and again, the walls between ordinary life and cartel violence are shown to be paper thin, and when they collapse the consequences are life-changing.
