Where Night Stops - Softcover

Light, Douglas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1945572663 ISBN 13: 9781945572661

Publisher: Rare Bird Books, A Vireo Book, 2018

Synopsis

We're born with a finite number of opportunities. Attrition, bad choices, misspent goodwill, and fucked-up luck. The opportunities dwindle through a process called living. Our portfolio of prospects turns into a tattered novel of outcomes.

I am twenty-two.

Orphaned by a brutal car crash, a young man lives with no plans for the future. Leaving his small town of Windstop, Iowa, he finds his way to Seattle, where he ends up broke and sleeping in a homeless shelter. There he meets Ray-Ray, an Iranian with a shadowy past, who inducts him into a criminal underworld. When Ray-Ray disappears, the young man is left to fend for himself through carrying out clandestine drops for cash from an anonymous source. At first, it's perfect: living without the responsibilities of a real job or a proper home. But then the scope of his travels widens to Europe, Brazil, and China, leading him deep into a conflict of international proportion.

Soon, he finds himself targeted for death, but from whom or for what reason, he's not sure. The only thing that he's sure of is that if he wants to survive, he needs a plan―now. Because at noon, they're coming to kill him.

About this title

About the Author:

Douglas Light is the author of Girls in Trouble, which won the 2010 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction. He co-wrote The Trouble with Bliss, the screen adaptation of his debut novel East Fifth Bliss. His work has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories and Best American Nonrequired Reading anthologies.

Review:

"Douglas Light’s fast-paced Where Night Stops is a well-executed thriller that combines genre staples with literary style."
―Foreword Reviews

"This sinuous narrative works neatly, both as a gripping novel and a solid meditation on identity."
―Kirkus Reviews

"...an artistically-rendered thriller that explores both identity and betrayal in abundance."
―Volume 1, Brooklyn

Praise for Girls in Trouble
"...wonderful collection about some rough-ass lives―this dude is the real deal."
―Junot Diaz, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"These are gems of stories, slyly, skillfully interrelated and captivating in their economy, truth, and acid wisdom."
―Frederic Tuten, author of Self Portraits: Fictions, The Green Hour, and Tintin in the New World

"Light deftly explores the rocky terrain of human emotion. . . . In the most subtle of manners, Light portrays the essential paradigm of adolescence. . . . [He] probes beneath complex layers of what it means to be alive, revealing the occasionally magnificent terrain of selfhood."
―Foreword

"Light enters the minds, hearts, and hurts of these characters with prose that is often lyrical, and always hypnotic."
―Heidi Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

"With this collection you will enjoy engrossing fiction tightly executed, but you will also get back in touch with your own humanity, further plumbing your own capacity for compassion and reflection." 
―The Collagist

Light's stories go down easy...The stories are fun to read and...fun to see being put together one word and sentence at a time. Light makes it look easy."
―Short Story Reader

"Girls in Trouble is a fine and thoughtful collection of fiction, very much recommended."
―Midwest Book Review

Praise for East Fifth Bliss
"Set on New York's Lower East Side, this first novel by Light (founding editor, Epiphany) introduces Morris Bliss, 35 years old and living with his widowed father. Morris has big dreams of traveling all over the world. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a job or the means to take his aspirations beyond a collection of travel brochures and pushpins in a map on his bedroom wall. This fun read boasts a likable protagonist, other quirky and interesting characters, and vivid and humorous descriptions of New York while also providing some significant social commentary. The scene in which Morris and a former high school classmate (and father of the 18-year-old girl with whom Morris is sleeping) storm a vacant building in the middle of the night to roust out a group of homeless squatters is both funny and disturbing. Recommended for large public libraries with an interest in new and unknown authors."
―Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Rare Bird Books, A Vireo Book
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1945572663
• ISBN 13: 9781945572661
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288