It was the summer before senior year when Danny and I decided the adults in our lives had irredeemably failed us, and so we hit the road. Two teenage runaways use a sketchy scam to keep the gas tank filled as they flee west from a small Midwestern town; two orphans with a battered canteen find a dead dog in the Mexican desert; a bookkeeper obsessed with a murder photo slowly comes undone; a man haunted by a childhood tragedy returns home fearing his suspicions; a backpacker has his moral compass tested in Peru. Whether returning to small-town homes or getting lost in the souks of Syria, the characters in these twelve stories struggle to find purpose and choose between escape and making peace with their lots. Whatever scene Revolinski drops his reader into, you feel like you are really there.

STEALING AWAY is a lush, shimmering collection, at once globe-trotting and far-afield, and also somehow as intimate and quotidian as any small hometown. Revolinski, an accomplished non-fiction writer, proves with this book that he has incredible range, wisdom, and empathy. I raced through this collection of short stories and can’t wait to read more of Revolinski’s fiction. A fantastic debut.

• Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs and Little Faith