A young woman with sky-blue shoes and a soft spot for the invisible steps into the life of the directionless narrator, and then disappears again, leaving only her voice.

A restless man dares to flee with an unknown woman. His marriage is in shambles and he doesn’t know where he’s going; there is only the fear , and his dream.

The search for his missing best friend leads a young man to Columbia—and into the depths of his own soul.

A wall replaces a fence in the hometown of a Syrian girl. Her world trembles; she is alone. She picks up a stone and throws it.

The seven stories in this volume by Lu Bonauer are about escape, and the tension between breaking away and arriving, from various perspectives. The characters search for homeland and identity, both in richer and in poorer regions of the world. With a touch of the surreal, Bonauer subtly and intensely portrays characters whose existence is threatened, both from without and from within. He writes about the incapacity to connect with others or even with oneself, and how the sense of home can spring up in the most unexpected places, and among the most unexpected people.