In this thought-provoking collection, Sri Lankan immigrants grapple with events that challenge perspectives and alter lives. A volunteer faces memories of wartime violence when she meets a cantankerous old lady on a Meals on Wheels route. A lonely widow obsessed with an impending apocalypse meets an oddly inspiring man. A maidservant challenges class divisions when she becomes an American professor’s wife. An angry tenant fights suspicion when her landlord is burgled. Hardened inmates challenge a young jail psychiatrist’s competence. A father wonders whether to expose his young son’s bully at a basketball game. A student facing poverty courts a benefactor. And in the depths of an isolated Wyoming winter, a woman tries to resist a con artist. These and other tales explore the immigrant experience with a piercing authenticity. 

Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer’s short fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, Summerset Review, Quiddity, Michigan Quarterly Review, and more. Her first novel, The Mask Collectors, is forthcoming. She is currently a clinical associate professor of psychology at New York University. She lives in Wayne, New Jersey.