Save Me, Stranger

WINNER of the Joyce Carol Oates Prize * An NPR Best Book of the Year

"Far-ranging and visionary collection...A dozen little masterpieces of heart and longing and surprise." -ADAM JOHNSON

"Save Me, Stranger is a book of parables-supernal and sinister. Disturbing but comforting. Read these stories with a buddy, because someone will have to scrape you off the floor." -LOUISE ERDRICH

Erika Krouse's debut memoir, Tell Me Everything, was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "lyrical, jarring, propulsive," and the Washington Post as "mesmerizing on every page." Now, with an electrifying new collection of stories, Save Me, Stranger, she further cements her reputation as an essential voice.

From the coldest town on earth to a sex shop in Bangkok to a haunted bed-and-breakfast in the Rockies, we meet characters at hinge moments. A runaway fights for her future while driving an ice-cream truck in gang territory; a cleaning woman investigates the teenager who died in her stead; a terminal patient in Alaska discovers new life in helping others die. This collection explores the borderlands between humor and hurt, community and self, and hope and despair, redefining what it means to survive.

Scalpel-sharp, unsparingly funny, and achingly wise, Krouse's expansive stories build to unforgettable emotional catharses, as these men and women must decide how far they are willing to go to save one another-and themselves.