By turns wrenching, transcendent, and haunting, the rich stories in Minus One follow characters whose lives are upended by death, estrangement, and loss—and the ways they must negotiate loneliness and absence to rebuild their new realities. In intimate portraits, a psychiatrist analyzes the missed signs of her stepson’s dangerous addiction, a resentful boy seeks revenge against his stepmother, a surgeon confronts his failed marriages, an artist searches for a new identity in widowhood, and a young dancer plots to escape a manipulative older partner.

Woven through this slim and powerful volume are astute observations on how pain and grief can be inherited from one generation to the next. With tenderness and honesty, Doris Iarovici explores the plunging depths of the human experience, lingering on moments of familial warmth and joy but never shying away from conflict and tension. These stories reveal glimmers of hope and possibility, even in our darkest times.

Doris Iarovici is the author of American Dreaming and Other Stories. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, The Guardian, and Crab Orchard Review. She works as a psychiatrist at Harvard University.