Cardinal and Other Stories

A man returning a tuxedo suddenly follows a parking lot attendant home; a volunteer recovery worker finds himself re-enacting a deadly fire; a husband parses the meaning of his wifes online banking password; a hack musician travels to a German math institute. Post-Facebook post-subprime crisis and post-prosperity the fearlessly deadpan characters in Alex Higleys debut collection navigate the bleak and surreal suburbs from Phoenix to Chicago with minimal instincts for self-preservation--and with quietly explosive results. Stylish perfectly controlled and pleasurably shocking Higleys brilliantly subversive portraits of a lost generation reconfigure and reinvent the increasingly complex relationships between art life and the people we love.